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WITHOUT BLEMISH 




WITHOUT BLEMISH 

TO-DAY’S PROBLEM 



MRS. J. H. WALWORTH 


AOTHOR OF “the BAR-SINISTER,” “a MISSISSIPPI MARTYR,” 

“heavy yokes,” etc., etc. 




“ Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide. 

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side.” 

Lowell.— The Present Crisis. 



NEW YORK : 

CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited 
1886 



\ 


Copyright, 

1886, 

By O. M. DUNHAM. 


A ll Rights Reserved. 


^'^- 3315^7 


Press of W. L. MERSHON & CO., 
Rahway, N. J. 


PREFACE. 


To suggest measures for the solution of a problem that is 
taxing the brains of the wise men of the land is to incur the 
charge of presumption and risk the penalty of arrogance. 

To pronounce upon the seeming apathy of the people 
who were imperatively called upon to solve that problem, 
while themselves still staggering from the blow that had left 
them stunned, bewildered, powerless, is to cast one more dart 
into an already lacerated breast. 

To maintain that this problem of the negro’s future can 
be solved alone by the people who know him and to whom 
he is bound by ties more enduring than the chains of 
slavery ; to maintain that his mental and moral emancipa- 
tion must be wrought out on the spot where he is destined 
to make his home for all time to come, is simply to espouse 
the cause of truth and justice. 

As a leaven of suggestion hidden away in many measures 
of meal this story is offered by the 


Author. 


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CONTENTS, 


Chapter i. a relic, . . . . . 

Chapter ii. mrs. stanhope invests in orphans. 
Chapter hi. a neighbor, .... 

Chapter iv. mrs. g. waring Trowbridge, 

Chapter V. mr. g. waring Trowbridge, . 

Chapter vi. hardlines, . . . . . 

Chapter vii. old dora, .... 

Chapter viii. rosetta, . . . . . 

Chapter ix. a returned wanderer. 

Chapter x. miss denton renews an acquaintance. 
Chapter xi. the blow descends. 

Chapter xii. discordant notes, 

Chapter xiii. eustis’s analysis. 

Chapter xiv. miss denton gives a dinner. 
Chapter xv. seed by the wayside, . 

Chapter xvi. the prodigal at home. 

Chapter xvii. storm shaken, . . . . 

Chapter xviii. old dora’s curse, . 

Chapter xix. comforted, . . . . 

CHAPTER XX. THE GULF FIXED, 

Chapter xxi. acceptance, . . . . 


PAGE. 

9 

23 

40 

54 

64 

71 

84 

94 

lOI 

117 

130 

139 

149 

158 

171 

184 

196 

211 

224 

238 

250 


VIII CONTENTS. 

Chapter xxii. olga’s box, .... 265 

Chapter xxiii. dr. maddox, .... 279 
Chapter xxiv. aunt judy little, . . 290 

Chapter xxv. stolen joy, . . . .301 

Chapter xxvi. to-morrow and to-morrow, . 313 

Chapter xxvii. co-workers, .... 332 
Chapter xxviii. in bridal array, . . 344 

Chapter xxix. the letter delivered, . . 356 

Chapter xxx. proven beyond a doubt, . . 367 


WITHOUT BLEMISH 


/ 


CHAPTER 1. 

A RELIC. 

I N ante-bellum times nature, good-taste and affluence 
went hand-in-hand in the perfecting of the suburban 
homes about the quiet little town of Natchez, Miss- 
issippi, and amid the subsequent wreck of matter, the 
upheaval of a system, and the abolition of all that 
gave their owners social supremacy, they still abide 
among the things beautiful, with an added touch of 
pathos that takes on the form of silent guest-chambers, 
crumbling terraces and weed-choked rose gardens. 

With one of the loveliest of these pathetic wrecks 
we have especially to do, as there, all alone, at the 
close of the war lived a woman, who, by reason of her 
stately dignity and almost apathetic repose of manner, 
fitted admirably well into the somber setting' of her 
home, where, facing west-ward, only the setting sun 
ever shone upon its faded facade ; where the shadows 


TO 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


lay long and black on the checkered marble slab in 
front of the carriage block ; where the singing of the 
mocking birds in the solemn cedars sounded frivo- 
lously impertinent ; where the craunching of wheels 
upon the graveled drive aroused instant attention, and 
the coming of a visitor was an event ; where last year’s 
fallen leaves choked up the rusty tin-gutters that 
begirt the ornamental coping of the old roof ; where 
thoughts of death and decay came readily and dwelt 
securely. 

Owing to a certain rigid erectness of carriage ; a 
certain very stately poise of the head — suggestive, not 
remotely, of royalty — together with ^various involun- 
tary assertions of superiority, this lonely house-holder 
was known, locally, as “ Old Lady Stanhope,” although, 
at the bottom of the few letters she found occasion to 
write, the name of Margaret J. Stanhope appeared in 
bold strong characters, that seemed to give emphatic 
denial to the aptness of the prefix “ old.” 

People judge so superficially, that when, at the close 
of the four years’ struggle which had deprived her of a 
husband, two sons and a brother, leaving her, for all 
earthly tie, a boy of fifteen years of age, her hair was 
found to have whitened, her step grown slow to the 
degree of heavy listlessness, and the whole .woman 
shrunken from the proportions of a brilliant leader of 
society, to those of a melancholy repellent recluse, 
they made haste to say : “ Mrs. Stanhope is growing 


A RELIC. 


II 


old fast ; ” and so prematurely were the honors of old 
age thrust upon her, that before she had seen her 
fiftieth birth-day she had come to be spoken of as 
“ the old lady at the Hall " and to be regarded as the 
legitimate possessor of all the rights and privileges 
accruing to the oldest inhabitant. 

On the other hand, either ignorant of, or utterly 
indifferent to the pitying comments of her old asso- 
ciates, Mrs. Stanhope passed her days in a species of som- 
nambulism that may have been neither wise nor health- 
ful, but was none the less natural under the circum- 
stances. Apart from the personality and prospects of 
the boy about whom clung every chord of her heart 
not unstrung and broken, the future was void and 
objectless, and the present empty and joyless. But the 
past ! Ah ! the past was so real ! Her past was her 
present! It teemed with bitter sweetness! To dwell 
in it, dream of it, cleave unto it, seemed the only thing 
possible to do. 

Not wishing to envelop the boy who was the last 
representative of his line, in the gloomy isolation which 
was the only condition of life endurable to herself in 
those bereaved days, she had sent him off to college 
promptly upon the close of the war. Not to the North, 
for that would have savored too much of acquiescence 
in a result which had been sealed with the blood of 
her nearest and dearest. But to Germany, where 
instruction was thorough and living cheap, she had sent 


12 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


him in pursuance of advice given her by the only per- 
son who ever dared talk to her in an advisory manner, 
Reverend Walter Bissell, incumbent of the only Epis- 
copal pulpit in the little town. 

She had grown strong through the discipline of pain, 
but a certain hardness had come with the strength. 
It was without the shedding of a tear, that she had 
held her boy’s bright young face between her hands, 
while the carriage that was to bear him away from her 
waited before the door, and said, photographing his 
features with hungry eyes : “ Of course, dear, I shall 
miss you torturingly at first. I shall miss my boy’s 
ringing laugh ; I shall miss the clatter of his horse’s 
feet upon the wooden bridge in the hollow, that told 
me he was near at home : I shall miss his cap on the 
rack in the hall — ” 

Why not shut up the old house and go along too,” 
Eustis had said, in an off-hand attempt to do away 
with the shadowy portions of a scheme that filled his 
own boyish soul with unalloyed satisfaction. But 
she had silenced him imperiously: “Hush, child, you 
do not know what you . are asking. I could not breathe 
away from this spot. Moreover, your ability to finish 
your course over there, depends upon my faithful super- 
vision of your interests here. I will have to manage 
the plantation with rigid economy to keep the old 
home-stead for you, and pay your expenses. So don’t 
carry away with you any exaggerated notions of your 


A RELIC. 


13 


own wealth. I don’t want to stint you in any neces- 
sary expenses however.” 

Then she had sent him away from her with the 
understanding that they could not hope to see each 
other for five years, for her plans for him included one 
year of travel at the close of four years of study. 

It never occurred to Mrs. Stanhope that five years 
of foreign life and study were perhaps not the 
best possible training for a young planter, who, in the 
natural course of events, would be at the head of an 
estate peopled by a newly emancipated and benighted 
race; encumbered by debts, incurred by his prede- 
cessors under a reckless order of things that was 
embodied in the necessity, “ of buying more land for 
a surplus of slaves, and buying more slaves for a sur- 
plus of land,” and demanding practical abilities of more 
than ordinary degree. All of the Stanhopes had been 
college-bred men, and until she was financially disabled, 
Eustis should go through the same educational course 
that his brothers had. 

So she took up the added burde*n of his absence 
with a heavy heart, but resolute determination never 
to let Eustis know what she suffered, there, all alone 
in the big grand house, over every door of which 
seemed written in lurid letters. In Memoriam. 

. The Stanhope place was accounted one of the very 
handsomest estates in the whole country side. 
Approached through a park where the live-oak, silvery 


14 


WITHOUT BLEMISH, 


cotton-wood and glossy magnolias, furnished forth 
rich variations in green, the house itself stood in square 
and massive proportions on the crown of its terraced 
grounds, each alternate terrace brightly outlined by 
white or pink azaleas, which, in that congenial soil, 
grow to the dimensions of small trees. 

But when the azaleas bloomed now, the mistress’s 
heart beat yet more heavily, and her step fell yet more 
slowly, for the boys that had fallen such useless sacri- 
fices to the lost cause, used to fight their mimic wars 
of York and Lancaster, when the terraces bloomed 
white and red with the azaleas, and now that the boys 
were gone, why should the azaleas bloom only to revive 
the memory of joys she had tasted in those peace-girt 
days of motherhood ? 

Down yonder in the hollow, where the clear waters 
of the creek rippled over its bed of many colored peb- 
bles, stood the bowling alley, under the spreading arms 
of a giant pecan. A useless sort of a structure now, 
where the dust lay thick upon the balls in the sloping 
trough and the pins lay huddled confusedly, just 
where they had fallen last. Her practical business 
adviser, a Mr. Trowbridge, Eustis’s godfather and legal 
guardian, advised its leveling and reconstruction into a 
negro cabin, but though her head might approve, her 
heart would not consent to such desecration. Some of 
the pleasantest hours of the happy care-free life she had 
led in those secure days, before Sumter’s rude awaken- 


A RELIC. 


15 


ing, had been spent down at the old alley, lazily swinging 
in the hammock in the little gallery, with attention 
evenly divided between the rumbling of the balls over 
the wooden alley in a hotly contested game between 
her husband and brother, the book in her hand, and 
Eustis, wading yonder, bare-foot, in the limpid waters 
of the creek ! 

The friendly contestants had fought their last battle, 
and slept side by side in far off graves ! The bowling 
alley was silenced forever. Eustis had out-grown the 
boyish delights of bare-foot wading in the creek ! 
Weeds clambered close about the decaying steps and 
peered insolently through the broken sash of every 
window! The hammock swung in unsightly tatters 
from its rusty rings I The old alley was fast drop- 
ping into hopeless decay ! Only the creek glided by 
unchanged and uncaring ; softly singing the requiem 
of dead days and buried joys, as it rippled over its bed 
of many colored pebbles: In Memoriam ! In Memo- 
riam I 

Within doors it was no better. Not a book! not a 
chair! not a picture! but spoke to her in mournful 
tones of the dead past that would not die and never 
would be past. It would have been better if she 
would have consented to some innovations, but to her 
in-turned vision innovation was forgetfulness, and her 
all of religion was, not to forget. 

The desk that had been located by the bay-window 


i6 


WITHOUT BLEMISH, 


in the library, so that the “judge ” should get the full 
benefit of the honeysuckle-laden air, was too sacred to be 
tampered with. It was a point of pride with her to 
keep the contents of that desk precisely as he had left 
it! 

The things he had approved of in life must retain 
the stamp of that approval now that he was gone. 
The boys’ hunting pouches and guns swung just where 
they had left them, when they mounted to ride away 
from her forever, looking so bright and handsome in 
their new gray uniforms that it was hard yet to realize 
that they lay side by side in nameless graves : exactly 
where — she did not even yet know! In those 
by-gone days one of the brightest spots in the 
house had been the little studio, in the top of 
the house, devoted to the aesthetic slovenliness of 
her artist brother, whose last unfinished water sketch 
still stood upon the easel, surrounded by all the 
belongings of the artist, undisturbed and sacred ! 

Small wonder, that the relic of all this home bright- 
ness walked now as one whose burden was almost too 
heavy to be borne. And thus she had lived ever since 
the dread certainty that none of them would ever come 
back to her. Like a cave-dweller she persistently 
turned from the sunshine and groped in the darkness. 
Physically, she was well enough looked after by two of 
her old slaves, whose tender hearts made the leaving of 
the lonely woman an impossibility. The only modern 


A RELIC, 


n 


thing about this grand old home was a very small and 
very shabby young colored girl, who, when she opened 
the front door to the rare visitors that found their way 
to the house behind the azaleas, had an incurable trick 
of regarding them suspiciously with a pair of excess- 
ively wide open eyes, then with picturesque tatters 
flapping wildly about her small bare ^lack feet she 
would speed through the grand hall shrilly announcing 
“ white folks,” to whomsoever it might concern, in 
tones of mingled terror and surprise. But then Dumps 
was simply an anachronism done in ebony. 

One day Mrs. Stanhope’s man of business had occa- 
sion to submit for her examination a very important 
legal document. She read the paper in silence, and fold- 
ing it up with that mechanical precision that was part of 
every thing she did, she handed it back to him with 
only one, and that a totally irrelevant comment. She 
quoted from the document : 

“Margaret, relict of John E. Stanhope! How 
queer to think of one’s self as nothing but a relic.” 

(The day chanced to be one of Mrs. Stanhope’s anni- 
versaries: she had been telling her beads on the rosary 
of her woes.) 

“ But the import of the paper, Mrs. Stanhope ? ” 

“ Oh ! that is all right I suppose,” she said in tones 
of utter indifference. 

I 

Then the lawyer had gone away and told the doctor 
that “if something was not done for old lady Stanhope 


WITHOUT BLEMISH 


r8 

she would fall into settled melancholia. Her mind was 
already losing its grasp of the realities of life, as evi- 
denced by her torpid indifference to a transaction invol- 
ving several thousand dollars.” And the doctor after 
paying her an unsolicited visit and getting politely 
snubbed for his pains, told the minister that, if some- 
thing was not done for old lady Stanhope, Eustis 
Stanhope would return from college only to put his 
mother into an insane asylum.” So the Rev. Dr. Bis- 
sell threw himself into the breach and daringly told 
Mrs. Stanhope that ‘ she was doing her son Eustis a 
great and irreparable injury.” 

“What can you possibly mean? ” asked the woman 
of many sorrows, fixing a startled look on the minister’s 
uncompromising face. 

“I mean that you are rendering yourself such a very 
undesirable sort of companion for a boy with any life 
or wit in him, that he must needs come home super- 
naturally gifted in point of filial reverence, or be the 
veriest muff in existence, not to fly from your depress- 
ing presence to any relief that offers.” 

Mrs. Stanhope hurled reproaches at her accuser until 
her quiver was empty, then, with sudden apologetic 
meekness, asked : — 

“What would you have me do, doctor? ” 

“Po! why you must arouse yourself! You must 
shake off this lethargy! You’ve very little more 
animation in you than the woman in the mourning 


A RELIC. 


19 


brooches where the woman and the tomb-stone and the 
weeping willow are all manufactured out of the same 
material." 

The Reverend Walter Bissell never did things by 
halves. When he scolded, he scolded ; when he petted, 
he petted, and he never left one in doubt as to which 
he was doing, either. He was scolding now vigor- 
ously. 

Mrs. Stanhope passed her long thin hand dreamily 
across her forehead, as she asked, yet more meekly : — 

‘‘ How ? " 

How ! Why, you must get out of this. You must 
make a change. You’ve refused yourself to your 
neighbors until they’ve all dropped you! You must 
travel, if to no other end than to discover that the 
boundary fence of Stanhope Hall is not the boundary 
line of the universe, nor, when the sun sinks behind 
that big old oak by your window, is the entire world 
left in darkness. Why, you’re in a worse plight than 
Robinson Crusoe. He couldn’t get away from himself, 
and you won’t.’’ 

“Where must I go ? ’’ she asked, groping toward the 
light, too much alarmed at the idea of doing Edstis 
any wrong to retain the slightest personal preference 
for a destination, or even to feel any indignation at this 
unsolicited interest in her affairs. 

“Go! Why, anywhere! everywhere!" says the 
doctor of souls, with liberal vagueness. 


20 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


“ I can’t go everywhere, doctor ! ” his victim sighed 
reproachfully. 

“Well, then, go North ! ” 

“ North ! ” 

The suggestion was as if some one should suddenly 
fling wide open to the blazing sunlight the windows of 
a room long closed and given over to shadowy dark- 
ness and creeping things. The garish sunlight blinded 
and dazzled her ! The suggestion stunned her ! Go 
to the North, where every thing was bright and fresh 
and crisp and sparkling with energy and prosperity ! 
Drag her wounds and her sores to the gate of Dives ! 
Risk the pitying solicitude of the well-meaning, and the 
cold endurance of the unforgiving ! Place her loss in 
stinging juxtaposition with their gain ! Why, it would 
be like passing from a grave to a carousal ! It was a 
remedy she shrank from applying, even though “ for 
Eustis’s sake,” was beginning to peal through her 
brain in a monotonous chime-like fashion ! Could she 
extend the hand of amity to these Northern conquerors 
without treason to her dear martyrs? 

“North, doctor? ” She repeated the words with a 
whole volume of reproach in her voice. 

“Yes! Why not? You have friends there. All 
the judge’s relatives live there. I think your hifsband 
was a Cleveland man originally ? ” 

There was a brisk breeziness about the doctor’s argu- 
ments that seemed to follow the sunlight into that 


i 


A RELIC. 


21 


darkened chamber of Mrs. Stanhope’s soul with win- 
nowing effect. 

“Yes,” she acknowledged hesitantly, “but — ” 

The minister divined her hidden thought. 

“ Mrs. Stanhope,” he said with grave assertion, “ the 
war is over ! Every body but a few sore-heads and un- 
reasonable women surrendered when Robert E. Lee 
laid down his sword.” 

Thus driven from her last stronghold, Mrs. Stanhope 
consented to “think about it.” 

And so, about two weeks later, the astonishing piece 
of news, that old Mrs. Stanhope had actually left home, 
percolated through the neighborhood. 

As it was not the season of the year when she, as 
nominal head of the plantation over in the Louisiana 
bottoms, from which she derived her revenues, would 
be going to New Orleans for an annual settlement with 
her commission merchants, this sudden hegira, involv- 
ing, as it did, the reappearance of the great Saratoga 
trunks that used to make regular summer trips from the 
Hall to some fashionable watering place, and the pro- 
motion of Aunt Betty from the poultry-yard to the 
dignity of an extempore lady’s maid, must mean some- 
thing! ^Must mean a great deal, in fact. 

To conceive of old lady Stanhope as alive, but per- 
manently located anywhere but in the house where the 
azaleas bloomed, and the dropping pecans marked the 
coming of the fall, required too great a stretch of the 


i 


22 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


imagination to be indulged in by the most frivolous- 
minded of the neighbors, who had long since been ex- 
cluded from the confidence of the lonely woman. 
That she would come back to them in the flesh, no one 
doubted. But that she had gone away at all, every one 
marveled. 

When, with a plaintive moan, Mrs. Stanhope heard 
the great wooden gate of the park swing creaking back 
on its hinges, shutting her out from her seclusion, she 
scored one more sacrifice for Eustis’s sake. 


CHAPTER II. 


MRS. STANHOPE INVESTS IN ORPHANS. 

I F one can imagine the sensations a snail would 
experience upon being suddenly dispossessed of its 
shell, and placed, exposed and writhing, in the middle 
of a modern model bee-hive, with the imperative neces- 
sity staring it in the face for adapting its ways to those 
of the swarming inmates of that hive, one can imagine 
how Mrs. Stanhope felt when she found herself actually 
domesticated, for the time being, in the city home of 
her prosperous Northern connections. 

For awhile, the desire to crawl, snail-wise, into some 
obscure corner of the hive, was her only well defined 
sensation. It hurt her, all this activity and stir and 
bustle and industry, and, however satisfactory the out- 
come might be in a rich store of wax and honey, she 
believed she preferred her own sleepy existence. 
But as the bees in that particular cell of the great 
national hive were imbued with the tenderest pity for 
this sore stricken snail, she was not permitted to indulge 
in her favorite pastime of brooding over the inevitable, 
even to the point of calling divine justice into question. 
Fortunately for her, her sojourn was made among a 


24 


WITHOUT BLEMISH 


masterful lot, who, believing that their own brisk, 
breezy ways, were the best sort of ways, combated her 
gloom and reticence at every turn with forceful deter- 
mination. She had come prepared to find herself the 
object of much solicitude and volumes of good advice, 
which she had made up her mind beforehand to accept 
as part of the regimen necessary to insure her against 
the threatened calamity of proving a “ nuisance to Eus- 
tis.” 

When she had quite made up her mind that Rev. 
Dr. Bissell was altogether in the right and herself alto- 
gether in the wrong, she had selected this cousin of 
the judge’s as the one among all his relatives with 
whom it would be least hard for her to come in contact 
under her much altered circumstances. She remem- 
bered this cousin as a soft-eyed, soft-voiced Christian 
lady, who went about doing good for the love of God 
and her fellow-man, and, with whom it was quite pos- 
sible to differ fundamentally without feeling one’s 
temper rise irrepressibly. 

She could hardly have selected a place where she 
could have been lifted more completely and suddenly 
out of the old groove than in this home of the judge’s 
cousin. 

“Cousin,” she said, toward the close of the second 
week of her visit, “I envy you Northern women the 
fullness of your lives. You never seem to have a 
superfluous moment ! Never an unappropriated second ! 


MRS. STANHOPE INVESTS IN ORPHANS. - 25 

Do you ever misspend an hour? I can hardly imagine 
you taking time to grieve for the taking off of your 
nearest and dearest ! ” 

** Perhaps it is best so ! ” Mrs. Dana answered, with 
the slow distinctness of a person habituated to weigh- 
ing her thoughts before committing them to the 
medium of irrecoverable words. “ Perhaps it is best so. 
I doubt if it is ever well to waste time in brooding 
over the incurable. I think the fuller one’s life is of 
the proper sort of activities, the happier, don't you ? ” 

“ Undoubtedly it is better to wear out than to rust 
out. But, if there is nothing to fill one’s life with, 
what then ? ” 

I can not conceive of such a condition of affairs.” 

[The judge’s cousin was the queen bee of the hive. 
A combination of gentleness, shrewdness, meekness 
and activity. The possessor of a soft, quiet voice, a 
pair of mild blue eyes, wavy white hair, upon which 
the weight of many a well spent year pressed lightly. 
Her voice was full of mild astonishment at the idea of 
any human being complaining of having nothing to fill 
the hours with.] 

“ Nevertheless, it exists in my own case,” said Mrs. 
Stanhope, with somewhat haughty assertion. The 
sparse population of the neighborhood of Stanhope 
Hall, even inclusive of the town, renders the taking 
care of our few paupers and orphans a task easily per- 
formed by a certain class of persons who are always 


26 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


only too glad to take such duties on themselves. Of 
course I subscribe, but there’s nothing else for me to 
do in that directipn. My neighbors are all persons in 
my own sphere of life. Planters’ families, more or less 
broken up by the war, poor, by contrast with their 
former circumstances, but of course not objects of 
charity, nor even of friendly interference.” 

“ Who is thy neighbor ? ” Mrs. Dana asked with 
sweet solemnity. 

The two women were sitting alone at the luncheon 
table. The other members of the family were always 
too busy to join in this informal meal. Mrs. Dana 
carefully sweetened a second cup of tea and extended 
it to her guest, unconscious that she had let fall a drop 
of gall into her cousin’s cup. 

Mrs. Stanhope flushed a little before answering. She 
had come prepared to take issue on various points, and 
had felt thankful that, heretofore, none of a very alarm- 
ing complexion had cropped out above the level of 
well-conducted social intercourse. 

“ In a social sense,” she answered a trifle nervously, 
“ no one who would furnish scope for the most intrusive 
philanthropy. In a Christian sense, I suppose it would 
take in every body of a high or low degree, darkeys 
included.” 

“ I should think you would find a practically inex- 
haustible field there'' Mrs. Dana’s emphasis was sig- 
nificant. 


MRS. STANHOPE INVESTS IN ORPHANS. 


27 


“ With my negroes ? ” 

“Yes.” 

Mrs. Dana’s hobby was national education. She was 
preparing now to mount and ride decorously. 

Mrs. Stanhope had received a violent shock, and her 
face showed the traces of the conflict within. 

The sound of wheels circling the house was a wel- 
come diversion to both. Mrs. Dana suddenly dis- 
mounted from her pet hobby (mentally resolved to 
remount it at an early date in the future) and retreated 
to safe neutral ground. 

“ I ordered the carriage for half past two, Margaret,” 
she said. “ This is the annual reception at our Prot- 
estant Orphan Asylum. I rather think you will enjoy 
an hour or so there. The building alone is well worth 
your inspection. We are rather proud of our children 
too.” 

The invitation was given and accepted with marked 
alacrity. Both felt that they had stepped backward 
from the brink of an abyss not one second too promptly. 
Mrs. Dana was regarded as a sort of patron saint at the 
asylum in whose behalf she spent much of her time, a 
great deal of her money, and an inexhaustible stock of 
the liveliest interest. 

An hour of exhaustive and exhausting examination 
of the various wards and departments inclined Mrs. 
Stanhope very favorably to her cousin’s proposition 
that they should take seats in the little school-room 


28 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


and watch the kindergarten exercises in the school. 
The sight of that small army of well cared for little 
waifs, so ignorant of and so indifferent to the superior 
blessedness of individual homes, had something very 
pathetic in it. Something that touched a long silent 
chord in Mrs. Stanhope’s heart and made it vibrant. 
Something that lifted her out of her selfish absorption 
and impelled her to say with an air of sudden but fixed 
resolve : 

Amelia ! I tell you what I can do. I can take one 
of your orphans home and forward her interests in life. 
That will give me some one to care for while Eustis 
is away. I will be good to her.” This last in answer 
to a grave uncertainty in Mrs. Dana’s eyes. 

“ We are always willing to put our little ones into 
good hands. The expense of taking care of so large a 
number is by no means light. I know you would be 
good to the child ; I am only afraid, too good.” 

“ In what way ? ” 

‘‘You would forget the future in indulgence of the 
present.” 

“ Try me,” said Mrs. Stanhope coaxingly. “ My 
heart is quite set on retrieving my character for 
uselessndss.” 

“ Has your fancy fastened upon any particular 
child ? ” 

“Yes. There is one here I have been watching 
ever since I came in. She is a round-faced, black-eyed 


MRS, STANHOPE INFESTS IN ORPHANS. 


29 


little sprite, that has looked at me with a bright smile 
every time she came a little closer in the exercises. 
There she is now ! She is holding a child by the hand, 
who has on a dark red dress, and is herself so very 
dark, that if I had seen her first down home I should 
have called her a mulatto.” 

Perhaps she is,” said Mrs. Dana, in a matter-of-fact 
voice. We have several children of mixed blood in 
the asylum.” 

Amelia ! ” 

Mrs. Stanhope had received another shock. But as 
she had not come North to be reconstructed, neither 
had she come hither to reconstruct, so she wisely 
refrained from comment, and gave her whole attention 
to the selection of her orphan. She was delighted and 
surprised at the amount of enthusiasm she felt stirring 
within her. 

Two by two ! hand in hand, the little army of waifs 
walked slowly past her chair, casting each a solemnly 
shy glance upward at the handsome lady who sat there, 
with her gloved hands folded quietly over a little 
satchel, while her large melancholy brown eyes searched 
each small face for outward and visible signs of that 
inward and spiritual grace which she should prefer to 
find in the child whom she proposed taking into her 
empty heart and lonely home. Mrs. Stanhope quite 
prided herself on her talents as a physiognomist,, and 
was confident of her ability to detect good blood. 


30 


WITHOUT BLEMISH 


“Stop!” 

She said it suddenly, and laid a detaining hand on 
the shoulder of a child who was just passing by. 
Two children came to a prompt halt in obedience to 
her demand. The one on whom she had fixed her 
gaze clutched the hand of her companion convulsively, 
while she raised a pair of soft dark eyes timidly to the 
lady’s face. 

“ Amelia ! I want this one.” 

Mrs. Stanhope took the small hand that was nerv- 
ously twisting the smooth surface of a little apron 
into untidy puckers, drew the child toward her, and 
smoothed the wavy black hair back from the rounded 
temples with a sort of proprietary interest. 

Mrs. Dana smiled a little queerly, then said in a low 
voice: “The other is decidedly the prettier, and I 
believe would be the least troublesome. Olga is a 
good girl.” 

“ Which is Olga?” 

“The larger and darker one.” 

Mrs. Stanhope glanced from the pretty round face 
that had so struck her fancy to Olga. 

She stood there like a little statue. She was a head 
taller than Mrs. Stanhope’s orphan (as she already 
began to call the younger child), and looked much 
older. Her attitude toward the younger child seemed 
altogether protective. Her dark rich complexion was 
brought into picturesque relief by the bright red of the 


MJ?S. STANHOPE INVESTS IN ORPHANS. 31 

woolen dress she wore. Her face was a perfect oval, 
unchildlike in its contour, and with a settled gravity 
about it that seemed to belong as much to the large 
liquid brown eyes as to the small mouth that was 
tight-shut, as if in habitual suppression of outcry. 
Her intensely black hair was very glossy, and waved 
crisply up to the very roots. Mrs. Stanhope’s pro- 
longed scrutiny brought the rich blood in a hot tide into 
the child’s smooth dark cheeks. 

“ Olga, you and Gipsy sit down there a little while.” 

Mrs. Dana pointed to a bench which would place 
the children quite out of hearing of the discussion 
which was to decide the fate of one or both of them. 

It was no unusual thing for these children, who 
belonged to nobody in particular, to be given away; 
and with that love of change and excitement so natural 
to their years, such transfers were regarded as among 
the most delightful possibilities of their lives. So, 
while Olga sat with her hands folded restfully on her 
white aproned lap, scanning the strange lady’s face 
with grave interest, her companion chewed her apron 
strings nervously, perpetually crossing and re-crossing 
the restless little feet that swung mid-way between the 
floor and the high backless bench. 

“Ain’t that a purty dress, Ollie?” she whispered 
venturesomely into Olga’s ear, after a prolonged 
inspection of Mrs. Stanhope’s rustling silk. 

“ She’s so beautiful herself ! ” (Olga’s most cheerful 


32 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


utterances had a plaintive ring.) I wish she wanted 
me. Gipsy, will you miss me when she takes you 
home with her? ” 

For all answer, Gipsy threw her arms impulsively 
about her companion’s neck, whispering with vicious 
emphasis : “ If she don’t want you, she needn’t to want 
me. I’d scratch her eyes ’fore I’d go without you.” 

“ You ridiculous girl,” said Olga, disentangling her- 
self from the clinging arms with a laugh, there, Gipsy, 
do behave yourself ! See ! Mrs. Dana is looking at us 
with such sober eyes. I’m afraid she thinks us bad or 
silly or something.” 

At that moment Mrs. Dana was saying of Olga : 

“We think her very pretty and she is one of the best 
and brightest children we have.” 

Mrs. Stanhope answered in the combative tone of 
one who wishes to enforce a previously expressed view : 

“ She is unquestionably of mixed blood. She is what 
we would call in the South a quadroon. That is the 
child of a white father and mulatto woman. They are 
proverbially handsome. This child is a perfect speci- 
men of that unfortunate race. Such a pity too ! But 
the other one ! My orphan ! I’ve quite made up my 
mind that such a bright-eyed, round-cheeked, dimpled 
thing would be good for me to have. She is an exqui- 
site brunette. Lively too, I doubt not, when she is 
at ease with one.” 

“ She is a perfect gipsy in her temperament and pro- 


MRS. STANHOPE INFESTS IN ORPHANS. 


33 


clivities. One of the most troublesome children in the 
house. She has outbursts of passion in which no one 
but Olga can do any thing with her. I am afraid your 
choice is an unfortunate one.” 

“ I can’t see why! she is decidedly the prettiest one 
you have. I do not expect to rear her with any great 
expectations, but I will do a good part by her.” 

“ I do not doubt that.” 

“ There is nothing about her to shock one’s sensibili- 
ties,” Mrs. Stanhope resumed with growing enthusiasm. 
“ She will not be a perpetual reminder of the asylum. 
She don’t look a bit forlorn. She will be a desirable 
companion for me always, and as I grow older I shall 
need her more. There is always the possibility, you 
know, of Eustis’s marrying and leaving me entirely 
alone.” 

‘‘You will find her petulant and unreasonable,” 
says Mrs. Dana, giving the obverse of the picture. 
“ It is because of her many punishments and scrapes 
that Olga seems to have assumed the position of 
mentor, drawn toward her by her own affectionate 
disposition. The matron says that Olga can do more 
with her than any one else. In fact, it was Olga who 
found the poor little waif crying just inside the gate 
one morning, when the children were turned out to 
play between breakfast and school, and brought her 
into the house.” 

“ I would like to know all you can tell me about her.” 


34 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


“ That is literally all that we know, beyond the fact 
that pinned under her apron was a note which begged 
the matron to take care of the little girl for an unfor- 
tunate mother who wished to secure the child against 
the brutality of a step-father, who lost no opportunity 
to show his hatred of her.” 

Was the letter that of an educated woman ? ” 

“ Quite so.” 

“ Then there is the probability of the child being ^ 
reclaimed?” 

We do not think so.” 

^‘Why?” 

Because we simply regard the note as one of the 
many excuses some women make who desire to rid 
themselves of incumbrances.” 

How old was she when left here ? ” 

She could just walk and could only say a few 
words.” 

‘^And nothing more has ever been heard of the 
mother?” 

“ Nothing at all. I suppose from the fact that she 
led her into the asylum Olga has always felt a pro- 
prietary interest in her.” 

How did the child Olga come?” Mrs. Stanhope 
asked, stirred into transient interest by the frequent 
mention of the child’s name. 

“ She was brought here by a light colored woman 
who said she was the child’s nurse ; that its mother had 


MRS. STANHOPE INFESTS IN ORPHANS. 35 

just died, and that its father had been dead some years; 
that she was not able to support the child, so brought 
her to the asylum, in accordance with the dying 
instructions of the child's mother. She also left with 
the matron a box, a small black wooden box, tied up 
with strong strings, which she said the child’s mother 
requested should be given to her when she came of age 
and not before under any consideration whatever.” 

“ Just as I suspected ! That light colored woman 
was the child’s mother. She wished to give her daugh- 
ter the benefits of this home and fabricated the story 
about being her nurse.” 

“ Do you think that possible ? ” 

“ If you knew the race as well as I do, you would 
know that any amount of duplicity is possible. But 
call the children, please. I should like to talk with the 
one you call Gipsy.” 

“ We call her Gipsy because the name seems to suit 
her so well, but when she first came here, she was 
always crying and saying, ‘Tennie wants mamma; ’ we 
supposed she was trying to say Fannie or Jennie.” She 
had beckoned the children nearer while speaking. 

Mrs. Stanhope compelled an upward glance from 
Gipsy’s frightened eyes with her hand under the small 
quivering chin. 

“ Little girl,” she said. “ I live all alone, when I am 
at home, in a big house where there are many pretty 
things, but no little children to skip and dance and 


36 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


laugh. I want a little child to live with me. I will 
dress her nicely and she shall have opportunities to 
learn to read and write, and I will give her a good home. 
Then, when she grows up and I grow old, I will 
expect her to be good to me and read to me and keep 
me from being a very dismal old lady. I think we could 
make each other very happy. Do you want to go with 
me?” 

“ And Ollie ! ” 

Gipsy was utterly unable to entertain any plan of 
happiness from which Olga was excluded. 

A cloud of disatisfaction swept across Mrs. Stan- 
hope’s face. Mrs. Dana caught the reflection of it and 
hastened to say : 

Indeed you had better make another selection, 
Margaret. Gipsy will simply be a burden to you sepa- 
rated from Olga. You have no idea what those two 
children are to each other. We aim to foster affection- 
ate tendencies in all our children. But it is mutual 
devotion in this case.” 

“ Why can’t Ollie go too ? ” Gipsy asks pleadingly. 
‘‘ She says her house is big, and Ollie’s so little she 
wouldn’t take up much room.” Her eyes were turned 
upon Mrs. Dana. 

Olga stood motionless and mute. Her small hands 
hung in front of her folded over each other, as it was 
her serene custom to carry them when idle. The red 
lips were shut in firm repression of any wish on the 


MRS. STANHOPE INFESTS IN ORPHANS. 37 

subject, but in her eyes the light of eager desire burned 
brightly. 

As Mrs. Stanhope noted the pathetic patience united 
with evident eagerness that pervaded the little form 
and face, a throb of pity pulsed in her heart, for which 
she silently apologized to all her ancestors. The child 
was so unmistakably of mixed blood, you know. That 
tightly waving hair, that rich blood tint ! She could 
not be deceived. That nurse’s story did not impose, 
upon her at all ! 

“Tell her you want to go too, Ollie,” said Gipsy, 
petulantly turning upon the pretty mute. “ You know 
you said you did.” 

“Did you say so, Olga ?” Mrs. Dana asked. 

“ Yes, ma’am, I would love to go. I would try not to 
be in the way, nor be any bother.” The little mouth 
quivered over the words. 

Mrs. Stanhope was conquered. 

“ It will do no harm,” she said, in a careless aside to 
her cousin. “ I do not propose to adopt any orphan 
into the position of a daughter! She may be very 
useful to Gipsy and to me.” 

But Mrs. Dana answered seriously : “ These chil- 

dren know no difference here, cousin, and I should not 
be doing my duty to Olga if I placed her where she 
would be compelled to feel herself an inferior. If you 
are willing to take both these children with you, bound 
by the conditions we exact of every one who takes 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


38 

them from the shelter of this asylum, I would be glad 
to consign these two to you, for I know you would be 
good to them, and I think the charge of them would be 
good for you.” 

“ What are your conditions ? ” 

“ Whosoever takes an orphan from us, binds him or 
herself to keep her until her eighteenth year, giv- 
ing her such educational and religious advantages as 
may be in their power. When the orphan shall have 
reached her eighteenth year, if she declines to remain 
longer with her patron, she shall be at liberty to select 
her own mode of life, provided she selects the right 
sort of vocation. Her patroness shall, under no con- 
sideration, let her go away from her entirely destitute, 
thus rendering her an easier prey to temptation, but 
shall give her fifty dollars on the day of separation.” 

“ I see nothing very alarming in all that. I can 
promise that as safely for Olga as for Gipsy. By the 
way, I shall have to invent some better name than that. 
It sounds too much like a pet-horse’s name.” 

“ But in Olga’s case you must make me an individ- 
ual promise.” 

“ And that is ? ” 

“That you will never let her or any one else know of 
your suspicion concerning the taint in her blood. Here, 
we make no doubt as to the truth of the woman’s state- 
ment who brought her here.” 

“ It would be a superfluous piece of unkindness to 


MRS. STANHOPE INVESTS IN ORPHANS. 39 

do any thing of the sort. She will not come near enough 
to me socially to render the erection of barriers essen- 
tial. Any thing else ? ” 

Nothing but your promise, as a woman of honor, on 
that one point.” 

Consider it given,” said Mrs. Stanhope, a trifle 
haughtily, rising and walking toward the bench 
where the children had again retreated to await her 
decision. 

Mrs. Dana knew of yore that Mrs. Stanhope’s light- 
est promise was held of sacred import, so she was quite 
content to give the two children into her keeping when 
a week later she turned her face homeward. 

“ I shall do my duty by both children according to 
my best judgment,” was her parting promise. More 
I can not say.” 

“ Nor I ask.” 

And so, when the gates of the outer park once 
more opened to admit the mistress of Stanhope Hall, 
two little waifs were added to her luggage : a supply 
of fresh, vitality coursed through her veins, and many 
novelties in the shape of new notions and progres- 
sive ideas were among her mental possessions. 


CHAPTER III. 


A NEIGHBOR. 

O LLIE, do you like it here ? " 

It is just like heaven ! Of course I like it.” 

** Heaven must be awful lonesome then, that’s all 
I’ve got to say.” 

For a moment previous to this sudden colloquial 
outburst the only audible sounds in the big library at 
Stanhope Hall had been the meaningless pecking of a 
slate pencil on a slate, as Virginia substituted the an- 
cient game of tit-tat-to,” for the sums in addition she 
had been set to do. 

(Mrs. Stanhope had promptly re-christened the 
child, and now, for the three months she had been an 
inmate of the Hall, she had never heard the old familiar 
Gipsy,” unless Olga inadvertently made use of it.) 

It is lonesome here,” Olga admitted, “ but I would 
“love to think I was to live here always.” 

“Well, aren’t we to ? ” Virginia asked with eyebrows 
arched wuth surprise at this first hint of any lack of 
permanency in the present arrangement. She had 
been unconsciously an ingrate, accepting the pretty 
dresses, the petting, the educational advantages sud- 


A NEIGHBOR. 


41 


denly bestowed upon her, with the unquestioning 
serenity of a child who had always been taken care of 
by some one, and took it for granted she always would 
be. The possibility that all the pleasantness she had 
just been inveighing against as dullness should sud- 
denly cease, was startling in the extreme. 

“ You are perhaps, but I am not.” 

“ What are you going to do? ” 

“ When I am eighteen I am going to make my own 
living some sort of way,” says Olga wistfully. 

“ But ‘ the madam ’ won’t let you.” 

Their difficulty in addressing Mrs. Stanhope had 
never been smoothed away.. With the caressing in- 
stincts of childhood they would gladly have bestowed 
some title of kinship upon her. Virginia, more fre- 
quently than not ventured to call her ^‘Auntie Stan- 
hope.” Olga cautiously watched the effect of such 
temerity, and was not emboldened to follow it up. 
*‘The madam” was a phrase borrowed from the serv- 
ants, who, discarding the old form “ Mistiss,” were 
thrown upon their very limited resources for a sub- 
stitute. 

“ I don’t think the madam will care much, Virginia, 
where I am concerned. Indeed she often says to me, 
‘ when you leave me,' or, * should you ever have no one 
but yourself to depend on,’ or something of that sort, 
when she is advising me to learn to sew nicely, and cut 
and fit.” 


42 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


This was said without any bitterness. Indeed there 
was none in the child’s heart. Possessed of acute 
powers of perception, she had very soon recognized the 
fact that she and Virginia stood in different attitudes 
toward their common benefactor. In her own childish 
fashion she had reasoned it all out, and accepted the 
result placidly : — “ She only took me because Gipsy 
would not come without me, and when she gets older 
and cares more for other things and people than she 
does for me, I will be in the way. Gipsy is so pretty, 
she will always be welcome. People must love 
Gipsy.” 

“ What you reckon you’ll do ? ” said Virginia, able to 
discuss Olga’s future with cold-blooded serenity, since 
her own was not involved in it. 

“ I don’t know. It’s a long ways off yet. I’m only 
a child ; maybe I’ll die before then.” 

Virginia sniffed this idea to scorn, and turned ad- 
viser: “ If I was you, I’d rather be a dressmaker than 
a teacher. “^If you’re a dressmaker yourself, your clothes 
will always fit you. If you’re a teacher, you’ll be 
bothered out of your life by bad children. I don’t like 
bad children.”*' 

From her earliest childhood Olga’s habit had been 
one of extreme reticence. Perhaps, if the child whom 
she had led crying into the presence of the matron of 
the asylum had been nearer her own age, this reserve 
might have melted away in the daily companionship of 


A NEIGHBOR 


43 


their subsequent life, but, as it was, her attitude toward 
Virginia had always been protective and encouraging. 
She gave much more than she might ever hope to re- 
ceive from the little brown-eyed Gipsy, who now, baf- 
fled of her desire to help settle Olga’s future vocation, 
finally and decisively turned toward the window, in 
search of a new sensation, with the airy inconsequence 
of a butterfly. 

Olga ! ” she called presently, in an excited voice, 
“ I see the top of a buggy coming up the hill.” 

“Only the top?” Olga asked from the other side of 
the room, where she was conscientiously scratching her 
way down the page of a rather careless looking copy- 
book. 

. “ It’s a dusty buggy, and the top’s all crooked and 
humped up. Now I see the horse! It’s a funny 
specky looking white horse, and when he bobs his 
head .up and down, one ear flips back and the other 
ear flops forward. Oh ! how hard he has to pull. Now 
he’s at the top of the hill, don’t you hear the*wheels on 
the gravel? There’s just one little old lady in the 
buggy, she’s driving herself. She’s got a veil all over 
her hat, but she don’t .look like she had any neck. 
Now she’s stopped at the carriage block! She’s twist- 
ing the reins about the whip with black cotton gloves 
on ! Oh ! Ollie, she’s getting out ! She’s coming in ! 
She’s white, too! Oh! do come see this funny look- 
ing little old woman.” 


44 


WITHOUT BLEMISH, 


Olga’s curiosity was not proof against the announce- 
ment that a stranger was actually within their gates, 
so she hastened to join Gipsy at the window, and fully 
partook of her curiosity. Since Mrs. Stanhope had 
found her orphans such a pleasurable resource, she had 
grown more than ever indifferent to the neighbors, 
whose roof-trees were visible from various hills and 
groves about Stanhope, but whose existence she was 
willing to take for granted. In this way the Rev. Dr. 
Bissell was about the only white acquaintance the 
children had made since coming South. 

Sure enough! there, walking toward the house with 
the slow, ungraceful gait of a hunch-back, holding her 
black silk skirt in jealous guard against contaminating 
contact, her veil thrown back from a face wan and 
pinched in hue and outline, a pair of keen gray eyes 
roving restlessly over the lawn as she advanced, was, 
what appeared to the children a most wonderful look- 
ing object. 

The little old lady was evidently quite familiar with 
the premises, for passing through the front door that 
always stood open in warm weather, she tapped lightly 
on the library door, and then entered without cere- 
mony. ^ 

Virginia shrank in unfeigned terror from the gro- 
tesque figure that halted on the threshold repaying- 
curiosity with curiosity. 

“Why, what on earth? Where did Mrs. Stanhope 


A NEIGHBOR. 


45 


pick you two midgets up, and where is she anyhow, my 
dears ? ” 

The extreme sweetness of the voice that asked these 
questions, and the kindly look of interest that came 
into the little old lady’s large tender gray eyes as they 
rested on the two childish faces full of awe, quite dis- 
sipated Olga’s half-formed suspicion that this might be 
a veritable Brownie, whose home was in some one of 
the many vine-tangled bayous by which the Hall was 
surrounded. 

“ We are Mrs. Stanhope’s orphans, ma’am, and Mrs. 
Stanhope will be in presently, she went to show Uncle 
Jake where to plant some trees.” 

“ Mrs. Stanhope’s orphans, hey ! well, if she ’d had as 
much to do with orphans as I have, she would have 
been shy enough of importing any.” 

The little lady selected an arm-chair with the air of 
a person who was familiar with the good and bad 
qualities of each chair in the room, and having pulled 
off her black cotton gloves, she began unwinding the 
long brown gauze veil that enveloped half her head and 
shoulders. Her arms were short and their movements 
awkward. With that instinct toward helpfulness that 
was either hers by birthright, or had been instilled into 
her at some very early period of her life, Olga came 
quietly forward and unwound the veil with which the 
visitor was wrestling. 

“ Thank you, dear! That was kindly thought of.” 


46 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


The little old lady smoothed down the light thin hair 
on both sides of a forehead where the blue vein tracery 
showed plainly through the delicate white of her tem- 
ples. Her large eyes followed Olga approvingly, as she 
folded the long veil and laid hat, gloves, and veil on a 
stand against the wall. 

“ And now, dear, if you will run and tell Mrs. Stan- 
hope that Miss Denton is here, that she has come to 
spend the day and would be very much obliged to her 
if she would have her horse put up, I will be very 
much obliged to you.” 

‘‘Do you keep orphan ’sylum ? ” Virginia asked with 
sudden directness, as Olga’s disappearance left her alone 
with the visitor. 

Miss Denton was struggling with a huge ball of red 
worsted that had gone into her pocket under protest, 
and now seemed equally reluctant to leave its friendly 
shelter. She brought it out with a vigorous jerk, as 
she turned her astonished eyes on the child. 

“You said,” Virginia continued, answering this look, 
“that if Mrs. Stanhope had as much to do with 
orphans as you did, she wouldn’t ’a’ wanted any more ! ” 

“ So I did, so I did. And I ought to have been 
ashamed of myself. Orphans are very nice and sweet, 
and I love them all, my orphan more than all the rest 
of the world put together. My orphan is a great big 
fellow, bigger than I am now.” 

“ Then he ain’t any orphan at all,” said Virginia, who 


A NEIGHBOR. 


47 


evidently considered herself an authority on the sub- 
ject, and regarded the condition of orphanage as sub- 
ject to statutes of limitation. 

She watched Miss Denton’s preparations for getting 
to work mutely fora second, then said, coaxingly: 

Tell me some more about your big orphan.” 

“ Oh ! if you’ve come here to live you’ll know him 
some time or other.” 

Has he got any fun in him ? ” 

Lots.” 

That’s the sort I like best. I like funny people.” 

Miss. Denton laughed and fell to knitting with two 
big ivory needles that clicked like castanets as she 
rapidly diminished the size of the red woolen ball, 
indulging Virginia’s curious questioning the while. She 
evidently felt very much at home. Mrs. Stanhope 
came in presently and greeted her visitor with unusual 
cordiality for her. It would be impossible to imagine 
a greater contrast than these two women presented. 
The one tall, stately and straight as a poplar, with a 
restful composure of manner that never deserted her ; 
the other short, ill-framed and crooked, with a nervous 
under-tow of excitement about her that found per- 
petual expression through some portion of her anatomy, 
and demanded a conductor in the shape of the big 
ivory needles that consumed ball after ball of zephyr 
wool with no ulterior object beyond that of giving 
constant occupation to a pair of long blue-veined hands. 


48 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


The one, the sole proprietor of one of the finest estates 
in the country ; the other, a paid attendant upon the 
caprices of a valetudinarian. The one, imbued with 
all the conservatism of caste, hedged about with pride 
and prejudices that retained vitality simply for lack of 
opposing influences; the other, radically progressive 
in all her views, and fearless to an extreme in giving 
expression to them. Yet, the two women had come 
nearer together than a categorical description of their 
opposing characteristics would seem to make possible. 
Mrs. Stanhope pitied and admired the lonely little 
spinster ; Miss Denton pitied and loved the stately 
widow of Stanhope Hall. 

“And so,” said the visitor, after the first greetings 
were over, “ you have invested in orphans.” 

“ Yes,” Mrs. Stanhope glanced through the window, 
where the two children were availing themselves of this 
unexpected holiday, by clambering in and out of Miss 
Denton’s horseless buggy, “ and I sometimes wonder if 
I have not made a mistake.” 

“Troublesome?” 

“Not in the least. On the contrary, so far, I have 
found them a greater source of pleasure than I had 
dared hope. But the responsibility is grave.” 

“ One of them will never give you any trouble. 

“ Which one is that ? ” 

“ The little Italian-looking brunette. She will always 
be docile, and adapt herself to circumstances.” 


A NEIGHBOR. 


49 


“ I wish I could think so, but you don’t know Olga. 
And she may have to adapt herself to circumstances 
of a most extraordinary character. 

But,” she continued, warning herself off danger- 
ous ground, it was about those children I sent for 
you to-day. I want you to undertake their education. 
I find myself lacking in the patience requisite. I am 
afraid I should get quite to disliking the poor little 
things if I had to contend with them every day.” 

“ Or they, you,” said Miss Denton, placidly. 

“ I suppose you have the time ? ” 

“ Ample. My young tyrant is off at college, and my 
old one has taken a fancy to try the virtues of some 
German Spa. I am not only my own mistress, for the 
first time in my life, but have the whole place to 
myself.” 

Their business concerning the teaching of the children 
satisfactorily disposed of, Mrs. Stanhope asked, with 
languid interest : 

*‘Tell me what has been going on in the neighbor- 
hood. I have been away quite an age for me.” 

“Yes, three months would be quite an age for any 
one of us moles. But, you know, nothing ever happens 
here, unless a mule dies, or somebody’s best cow is 
stolen, or something of an equally startling nature.” 

“ In the main, perhaps, you are right ; but one thing 
has happened since I went away. Jake tells me that 
Wildermere is sold.” 


50 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


** So it is. I took it for granted you knew that. 
Did Jake tell you what it was sold for? ” 

“No ; he just said it was sold, and that it was being 
beautifully fixed up.” 

“ For a colored seminary,” said Miss Denton, with a 
scrutinizing look at her hostess. 

Mrs. Stanhope’s brow clouded, her lips came to- 
gether ominously. Wildermere had once been the 
home of elegance and refinement. Its proprietors had 
been among her dearest friends. Death and removals 
had long since relegated the beautiful home to empti- 
ness and silence. But, hitherto, it had been monu- 
mental in its desolation. 

“ What are the Bradshaws thinking about ? ” she 
asked, angrily. 

“About putting a perfectly useless piece of prop- 
erty into the form of dollars and cents, I suppose,” 
says Miss Denton, uncurling a fresh supply of red 
worsted, as she knitted placidly on. “ I know there’s 
only one of the boys and the mother left now, and 
they live over on the plantation, altogether. So, 
where’s the sense of keeping Wildermere in the family. 
They are too poor to keep up a town house, and run 
the plantation, too.” 

“Yes — but — ” 

“Yes- — but,” says Miss Denton, laughing into the 
clouded face of her friend, “ if Wildermere had 
been sold to any other parties, or for any other pur- 


A NEIGHBOR. 


SI 

pose than for a seminary for our own darkeys, you 
would have thought that the Bradshaws had done a 
very wise thing.” 

Perhaps you are right, but then — ” 

‘‘Of course I am right. I judge of you by my own 
sensations, when the news first reached me.*^ I sup- 
pose generation after generation of us must pass away 
before the balances can be nicely adjusted to the 
weighing of just such questions as this.^* As far as I 
am individually concerned, without taking any very 
high moral grounds, I am willing to see this educational 
experiment faithfully tried, without let or hindrance. 
We contend for its folly; its advocates for its wisdom. 
Nothing short of demonstration will ever satisfy either 
side as to the issue. I suppose our views are pretty 
much the outcome of local influences. At any rate, it 
is the part of wisdom to bear this dispensation philo- 
sophically.” 

“ Especially,” says Mrs. Stanhope with a bitter curl 
of the lip, “ as our feelings in the matter are not likely 
to be taken into consideration.” 

“Not at all likely. Indeed, a few years hence, when 
we’ve had time to accustom ourselves to the sight of 
the Wildermere lawns and rooms and terraces swarming 
with dusky aspirants for academic honors, doubtless 
we’ll begin to associate it in our thoughts with the 
classic groves of Athens, you know.” 

“How can you make a jest of any thing so horrible?” 


52 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


Mrs. Stanhope asked indignantly, so indignantly that 
Miss Denton laughed long and merrily. 

My dear,” she said finally, sobering down and wip- 
ing her eyes, don’t be so tragic. There may be a ludi- 
crous side to it, but there certainly is not a horrible one. 
I know it is a trial to you. Perhaps even more of one to 
you than to me. But there is one consolation. The 
people who are at the head of it are really genteel.” 

“ I fail to see any consolation in that,” said Mrs. 
Stanhope, with such marked emphasis that little Miss 
Denton, considering discretion the better part of valor, 
diplomatically steered into smoother waters. 

The day was drawing well on to a close when Mrs. 
Stanhope stood by her guest on the front gallery as 
the dusty-topped buggy and the flea-bitten steed were 
being brought into enforced relations once more. 

‘‘ I have it ! ” said Miss Denton, stopping in the act 
of pulling on her long black cotton gloves. 

“ Have what ? ” 

Mrs. Stanhope was accustomed to her friend’s explo- 
sive style of delivery. 

Who it is that child Olga reminds me of ! I’ve been 
puzzling over it all day.” 

The children were standing together on the marble 
carriage block laden with Miss Denton’s belongings. 
Olga’s profile was turned toward them. 

The glossy hair grew low down upon the smooth 
dark forehead, the little nose destroyed the classic 


A NEIGHBOR. 


53 


outline. Olga was prettiest when she was looking 
straight at you with her large earnest eyes. 

Well ! ” Mrs. Stanhope said a trifle impatiently. 

“ It is of my poor George.” 

“Mr. Trowbridge?” 

“Yes,” said Miss Denton, with her gaze still fixed 
upon the child’s profile, “ and if you had not picked 
her up so far north I should say — ” 

“ Nonsense ! ” said Mrs. Stanhope in her tartest 
voice. (So long as Olga was under her protection no 
foolish conjectures as to her origin would be tolerated.) 
“ Then I may depend on you to take the children 
in hand from Monday,” she asked in her business 
voice. 

“Yes,” said Miss Denton, “ and I think I shall quite 
enjoy having the young things about me.” 

Then she clambered laboriously into her ancient 
buggy and turned the flea-bitten horse’s head home- 
ward. 


CHAPTER IV. 


MRS. G. WARING TROWBRIDGE. 

HE plantation bell on the Bendemma place filled 



i. an official position of three-fold importance, per- 
forming its various functions with an imperturbable 
impartiality that would have been creditable to offi- 
cials of freer agency and higher grade. Of mornings, 
between the breaking of the dawn and the rising of the 
sun, it issued a clamorously imperative summons to 
all whom it might concern, to take up the burden of 
another day, casting behind them, as temptations of 
the evil one, the desire for a little more slumber, a lit- 
tle more sleep. When the day’s work was over, and 
the soft evening air was redolent of frying bacon from 
a hundred cabins, it rang decorously, coaxingly, and 
prolongedly, inviting the faithful to prayers, in the 
long many-windowed “ meetin’ ” house, that was the 
pride and glory of the place. 

And yet again, when the angel of death hovered 
over the spot, and the untutored soul of any one of 
their number was called upon to answer the summons 
so full of dread mystery to those who staid behind, the 


MRS. G. WARING TROWBRIDGE. 


55 


Passing Bell ” was rung solemnly, slowly, dolorously, 
in a lugubrious fashion that set every tortured cur within 
sound of it to yelping in dismal harmony, and made 
pause in each laborer’s task, as with bated breath and 
frightened hearts, they spoke of the passing soul. 

It was the morning summons alone, that held any 
significance for the mistress of the Bendemma place ; 
and without precisely knowing why, it had come to be 
a point of honor with her to rise in prompt obedience 
to its first clang, whether she felt like it or not. 

On this particular morning, she was ahead of the 
sun as she unlocked the door that gave on the back 
gallery and stood within the opening gazing out over 
the big unbeautiful yard, where was the wood-pile, the 
logs heaped in jack-straw confusion upon each other, 
and the large white ash-wood chips strewn thickly as 
they had flown from the shining ax-blade of the wood 
cutter ; where was an unsightly heap of empty meal and 
pork barrels, pitched into the yard from the last spas- 
modic store-room cleaning, and destined eventually and 
gradually to disappear in form of dry-wood kindling 
for the green wood logs of the jack-straw wood-pile ; 
where was the doorless stable, which furnished only par- 
tial shelter for the master’s riding horse, a noble bay that 
stood now, arching his neck over the plank fence and 
gazing longingly toward the strip of pasture land 
whose joys he never tasted unless by open rebellion ; 
where were three or four imprisoned calves, chewing 


56 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


the mossy bark from the green wood waiting dumbly 
for the sweet by and by when they would enjoy a brief 
reunion with their mothers. The unlocking of the 
door was always the signal for the appearance of Gyp, 
the mistress’s one pet, the shaggy yellow shepherd dog 
whose local habitation was in a turned down barrel on 
the side of the kitchen, to come frisking and waltzing 
and giving every manifestation possible to the canine 
race of extravagant joy at this diurnal resurrection of 
the idol of his life. 

Mrs. G. Waring Trowbridge, as Gyp’s mistress was 
somewhat sententiously called by Mr. G. Waring 
Trowbridge, Gyp’s master, never failed to respond by 
laying a long white hand caressingly on his shaggy head 
for a moment in acknowledgment of his joyous morn- 
ing salute, which was generally given in three very 
crisp barks. 

Mrs. Trowbridge held in her hands a key-basket 
weighted down with big clumsy keys, badges of office 
and unrest. Notwithstanding it was very early morn- 
ing, there was none of that freshly awakened activity 
about her that suggested a vivid interest in her sur- 
roundings or her occupations. 

Apparently she was waiting for some one, and 
apparently that some one was in even less of a hurry 
than herself, about starting the domestic machinery 
a-whirring once more. Perhaps it was because of the 
dead monotony of those duties, the absolute flavorless- 


MRS. G. WARING TROWBRIDGE. 


57 


ness of those days, that Mrs. Trowbridge found it easy 
to be patient.^ She had been waiting for things that 
came not all her life. There was apathetic suggestive- 
ness about this woman, that perhaps no one was more 
unconscious of than herself. She had begun the pro- 
cess of repression so long ago, so far back among the 
somber-tinted days she reckoned as her life, that she 
had almost lost sight of the flickering fancies and ambi- 
tious hopes of her girlhood. 

Her husband declared her the best wife in the world. 
And if it had been the custom of the land to enter 
one’s wife at competitive exhibitions, no doubt Mr. G. 
Waring Trowbridge would have entered his, glibly 
cataloguing and demonstrating her superiority to all 
other contestants, and would have carried off the first 
prize with that self-laudatory aspect one assumes who 
considers himself directly and indirectly responsible for 
the super-excellence of his exhibit. 

Every one declared that if it had not been for this 
wife of his Mr. Trowbridge would have gone by the 
board long ago, for although every one was ready to 
admit that the master of Bendemma was the soul of 
honor, he certainly was phenomenal in his ability to 
mismanage his own affairs. 

Perhaps this woman, standing there with the heavy 
key-basket, looking so preternaturally patient, was not 
devoid, at the outset, of every womanly woman’s pref- 
erence for leaning on something stronger than herself. 


58 


WITHOUT BLEMISH, 


but she had never consciously admitted, even to herself, 
that her married life had been any thing but a shining 
success. As she stood there gazing out over the dewy 
fields, she was not indulging in any unwholesome 
retrospection, nor reviewing the somber battalions of 
her disappointments and blighted hopes; she was simply 
wondering in the most matter-of-fact fashion possible 
why it was, that she could not insure promptness on 
the part of her house-servants, when she set them such 
an unimpeachable example in early rising. 

True, when she came to think of it, there was no 
especial reason why any one should be in a hurry in 
that sphere of life to which it had pleased God to doom 
her. For, after all was done, the days were so very 
much too long for her desires. Nevertheless there was 
an under current of energy about Mrs.Trowbridge which 
perforce of circumstances she expended in the dull 
routine of plantation life, that under happier auspices 
and more favorable conditions might have enabled her 
to carry some of her many strangled ambitions to a 
triumphant culmination. As it was, she was applying the 
steam power that would have propelled a heavily laden 
tow of barges up stream, to the task of sending an insig- 
nificant dredging-boat through the mud ! Moreover, 
somewhere within her warped mental apparatus, was 
implanted a deathless conviction that as ye sow, so 
shall ye reap ! 

She was aware that things were at a pretty low 


MRS, G. WARING TROWBRIDGE, 


59 


financial ebb on the Bendemma place, and foolishly 
holding that pluck and perseverance were all that were 
necessary for the final betterment of matters, she per- 
sisted in being very brisk and systematic at her house- 
hold spigot, hoping that the good results thereof would 
eventually tell upon the larger and more important 
bung-hole of the plantation. 

So, wisely or unwisely, Mrs. Trowbridge was pretty 
sure to be astir in time to catch the first glimpse of 
the sun as he rose over the dark line of the tree-tops 
that defined the eastern boundary of the estate, and 
shot great golden shafts earth-ward, illuminating the 
ragged water-willows that fringed the slough to the 
left of the house, lending fictitious and transitory 
brightness to the sluggish water at their feet. She 
loved the plantation best with this halo of morning 
glory resting upon it. The stubble of last year’s im- 
perfectly gleaned corn-crop rose thickly about the 
fields, wrapped from root to apex with the graceful 
tendrils of the tie-vine, whose tiny blue and white bells 
were gemmed with iridescent dew-drops ; the sun’s first 
caress glorified them, later on his hot breath would 
shrivel the fragile flowerets into ugly insignificance. 
The dust from the passing teams would blot out the 
beauty of the crimson trumpet flower that flaunted so 
gayly now from every cross ditch and elder bush. The 
tramping of a hundred hoofs would trouble the waters of 
the little slough presently, and when the mules had slaked 


6o 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


their thirst it would be scarcely more than a mud-hole. 
But Mrs. Trowbridge had long since come to be a strict 
utilitarian. The useless was never the beautiful in her 
eyes. She could not afford to indulge in such luxuries, 
she would tell you. That longing for stir and activity 
which was not dead, but only sleeping in her breast, 
made her take a dull sort of satisfaction in watching the 
plantation awake to its modicum of energy. 

The big bronze gobbler fluttered clumsily down from 
the tall turkey roost under the eaves of the corn-crib, and 
spreading his tail pompously, strutted slowly to and fro, 
sending a sententious gobble roostward, in token that 
he was ready to resume his official duties as chief of 
staff. Gyp never failed to condemn this matutinal 
gobbling with a sharply reproving bark, which Mrs. 
Trowbridge speedily repressed as inimical to Mr. G. 
Waring Trowbridge’s morning repose. One by one the 
turkeys dropped earthward and joined the sedate pro- 
cession that took its way to the corn-crib to forage 
among the mules. Mrs. Trowbridge took undue pride 
in her turkeys. She abhorred failure. The turkeys 
were the exponents of one of her few successes, so she 
regarded them with a feeling akin to gratitude for 
being so many and so sleek and so prosperous. 

The cocks were crowing and fighting alternately, yon- 
der in the hen house that had to be guarded so jealously 
against minks and coons, and the hens were clucking 
restlessly for liberty to be out and doing. ’Riah would 


MRS. G. WARING TROWBRIDGE. 


6i 


come presently and mix the feed for them, then 
Mrs. Trowbridge would slip up the little wooden slab 
and stand patiently waiting for the last one to step 
mincingly down the small ladder. There was no special 
reason for counting them every morning, only it killed 
another five or ten of the moments of which she had 
such a dreadful superfluity. Then she would go to the 
milk-room and skim last night’s setting of cream, and 
start the morning’s churning; from there to the garden 
to see if the okra and beet seed were breaking ground 
yet ; then she would stir the batter for the corn griddle 
cakes for breakfast, (somehow ’Riah could never be 
trusted to get the batter just of the proper consistency, 
and if the cakes were not just right Mr. Trowbridge’s 
entire breakfast would be spoiled), and then she Would 
read until the hands of the clock pointed to a certain 
place, when she would wake George up. Sometimes 
her reading matter consisted of a magazine a month 
old, or a New Orleans paper a week old. She would 
have given her preference to sewing in the fresh morn- 
ing hours (one can always muster energy for reading), 
but her sewing machine was one of Grover and Baker’s 
earliest and noisiest make, and in moments of irritabil- 
ity Mr. Trowbridge had been known to call it that 
<‘d — d old grist-mill,” since when Mrs. Trowbridge 
carefully avoided using her ancient sewing machine 
until Mr. Trowbridge was fairly out of sight and hear- 
ing, which was one of the ten thousand minute acts of 


62 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


self-sacrifice which went toward preserving the harmony 
of Mrs. Trowbridge’s home, without any recognition 
from the unconscious beneficiary of them all. 

Finally ’Riah comes, tying on her bandanna as she 
walks, bringing into clinking contact a tin pail that is 
swung over one arm and a tin coffee-pot held in one 
hand. Mrs. Trowbridge has never disputed the legal- 
ity of pail or pot, although she is well aware, and ’Riah is 
aware that she is aware, of the fact, that when ’Riah goes 
home at night the pail will be full of provisions and the 
pot of coffee for home consumption by ’Riah’s old man, 
presumably an independent bread-winner. Mrs. Trow- 
bridge is too genuine a lover of peace to stand upon her 
exact rights with ’Riah or any other privileged depreda- 
tor. It wouldn’t pay upon any consideration. So as 
’Riah comes through the gate Mrs. Trowbridge’s gaze is 
fastened upon the spotted calf, the youngest of the im- 
prisoned offspring, whose head is held patiently close 
to the fence that the mother’s tongue may caress it. 

. ‘‘You are late, ’Riah,” this is the mistress’s formula. 
’Riah looks up at the sun, her only acknowledged moni- 
tor and stands convicted : 

“My old man done had a pow’ful tussle wid de col- 
ick las’ night ! He eat too much cold colluds fur supper 
an’ I didn’t git no sleep tell de chickens was a-crowin’ 
fur day.” 

Mrs. Trowbridge was aware, and ’Riah was aware that 
she was aware, of the purely imaginative nature of this 


MRS. G. WARING TROWBRIDGE. 63 

apology ; but as 'Riah was called upon to manufacture 
three hundred and sixty-five excuses for tardiness in the 
course of ayear, it was no small tax upon her powers of 
invention, and if the stamp of slovenly haste was some- 
what too apparent upon her manufacture, who can 
blame her? 

On this particular occasion Mrs. Trowbridge's objur- 
gations to haste in the preparation for breakfast were 
unusually impressive. 

‘‘ Mr. Trowbridge has some very important business 
to attend to this morning, ’Riah, which will take him up 
to Hardlines, you really must hurry a little.” 

All right, Miss Nannie, I’ll have dat breakfas’ on 
de table befo’ de cock crow trice.” 

'Riah was given to scriptural quotations which she 
was never known by any accident to get right or place 
appropriately. 

Having thus set the domestic machinery smoothly 
running and oiled all the joints and made sure that 
things were in comfortable trim for an early breakfast, 
Mrs. Trowbridge ventured to break in upon Mr. 
Trowbridge’s repose. 

He had a business appointment to keep! Mr. Trow- 
bridge was the soul of honor, and punctuality was one 
of his theoretical strong points ! 


CHAPTER V. 


MR. G. WARING TROWBRIDGE. 

M r. G. waring TROWBRIDGE’S emergence 
from his chamber was like the breaking of another 
day, or the rising of another sun, so far as a fresh ac- 
cession of activity was concerned, though the day that 
began with his up-rising was sometimes cloud beset, 
and the effulgence he cast off apt to be a trifle lurid. 

The rhythmic sound of his boot heels, as he slowly 
paced the gallery that overlooked the yard premises, 
paring his shapely nails, was always the signal for 
Sandy, the hostler, to apply the curry-brush and comb in 
a perfect frenzy of determination to make the bay’s 
glossy hide glossier yet, if possible, and for ’Riah’s pots 
and pans to give forth uproarious manifestations of 
industry; and for Gyp to repeat his Waltz Delight with 
- moderated raptures and some mental reservations, for 
Gyp had never learned to predicate with any degree of 
exactness the probabilities of his receiving a kick or a 
caress from the master, who, in his canine judgment, 
ranked as a vastly inferiq^production to the mistress. 


MR. G. WARING TROWBRIDGE. 65 

But then Gyp’s opportunities for judging were very 
limited, you know. 

Mrs. Trowbridge laid down the- mature magazine 
that had filled up a serene half hour for her, and joined 
her husband in his circumscribed promenade. They 
were a pleasing couple to look at. They had been 
called a very handsome couple by the wedding guests 
that had gathered at the big country wedding supper, 
and Mr. Trowbridge was still entitled to be so con- 
sidered. 

He was a typical Southerner in appearance. Tall, 
somewhat angular, easy and graceful in his movements, 
a long face covered with an abundant growth of black 
silky beard, a pair of luminous dark eyes, and a heavy 
suit of waving black hair. There was, however, a sug- 
gestion of chronic ennui about the man, which may have 
been the result of insufficient occupation for mind or 
body, but it left the impression with one, that on the 
whole Mr. G. Waring Trowbridge found life rather an 
unsatisfactory experiment. 

Time had dealt more leniently with him than it had 
with his wife, about whose gentle eyes unmistakable 
crow’s feet were discernible, and about the corner of 
whose mouth was a settled downward droop, that was 
pathetic in the extreme. 

You will be gone all day I suppose, George ? ” she 
said, linking her arm in his as he clasped his pen-knife 
and returned it to his pockety, . 


. 66 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


“Yes. All day certainly, and perhaps I shall not 
return before bed-time. If Tm not back by nine 
o’clock, don’t sit up for me.” 

(Which was exactly what he knew she would do.) 

“ What shall you do with yourself? ” he asked, not 
that he felt any very thrilling interest in the reply. 

“Oh ! I shall do well eaough. I’ve some sheets to 
hem, and I think four or five of my Plymouth rock 
hens will be coming off with broods to-day, and I want 
to direct Sandy about preparing the ground for the 
sweet potatoes and — ” 

Mr. Trowbridge smiled in his superior way. 

“ What a blessing it is you women find these small 
industries so soul-satisfying.” /' 

It had never occurred to Mrs. Trowbridge that they 
were soul-satisfying, but she had found out long ago 
that the only substitute for the unattainable joys of 
which she still sometimes dreamed wistfully, was to 
crowd the hours to their utmost capacity with what- 
ever her hands found to do. Another fixed rule of her 
life was, never to contradict her husband on a slight 
provocation. Mr. Trowbridge was argumentative, and 
would rush into controversy on the slimmest pretext. 
Mrs. Trowbridge was careful never to offer that pretext. 

“ By the way, Nannie, this is ration day. I shall 
have to get you to attend to it for me. Sandy can 
weigh the meat and measure the meal, if you will just 
keep an account of who gets it.” 


MR. G. WARING TROWBRIDGE, 


67 


Mrs. Trowbridge was so used to supplementing her 
own duties with those of her husband, that she simply- 
said, “Yes, George,” as they turned indoors in answer 
to the breakfast bell. 

Later on Mr. Trowbridge stood with his horse’s 
bridle in his hand, impatiently tapping his boot with 
his whip, while Sandy readjusted the saddle. Sandy 
had been trying for a great many years now to learn 
how to locate that saddle precisely to the master’s 
liking. Either Sandy was very obtuse, or the master 
very exacting. Each had his own private opinion on 
the subject. But the saddle had always to be read- 
justed. 

“ Isn’t this rather a strange time of the year for Mrs. 
Stanhope to come over to the swamp?” Mrs. Trow- 
bridge asked, standing waiting for her lord’s deliberate 
departure. 

“ A little unusual, but hardly strange. She writes 
me word that there’s some snarl about that money of 
Eustis’s that she loaned old Dennison, thinking it 
would be such a good ^vestment. Then she wants 
advice about new gin-Snds, and a few more cabins. 
In short, you know what Mrs. Stanhope’s ‘ friendly 
consultations ’ mean.” 

“ Poor woman ! I’m sure I’m glad she has you for 
an adviser, George. Every body else, the agent, and 
the commission merchant, and her manager, have 
interested views. Besides, so long as you are Eustis’s 


68 


WITHOUT BLEMISH, 


legal guardian, I suppose it is your duty to see that 
this property is well taken care of. You will have a 
lovely day for your ride." 

Mr. Trowbridge vaulted lightly into the saddle, 
arranged his stirrups and said: “ Yes, it is pleasant. By 
the way, Nannie, there is no good reason why you 
should not have gone with me. You would have 
enjoyed a talk with Mrs. Stanhope. I am sorry I did not 
think of it sooner. But it is late now, and the buggy 
wheels need greasing, and — " 

“ Oh ! never mind me ! I shall do very well," Mrs. 
Trowbridge answered with customary self-abnegation, 
and smiled pleasantly at her handsome husband. 

“'By-by then! AmusF yourself until I get 
back." 

Thus airily casting off all responsibility for his wife’s 
day, Mr. Trowbridge cantered briskly away through 
the fresh spring air. His horse was a delightful 
riding animal. Mr. Trowbridge was always weir 
mounted. His route, the most of the way, lay through 
pleasant woodland, where th^ragrance of the sweet 
gum heavily scented the atmosphere ; where myriad 
birds twittered and fussed over the location and archi- 
tectural details of their new nests ; where gray and 
black squirrels chased each other fearlessly from tree 
to tree, enjoying that immunity from terror that plow- 
ing time, by giving other occupation to the freedmen, 
alone secured them ; where the delicate patterns of 


MR. G. WARING TROWBRIDGE. 69 

the half-grown foliage were re-traced in shifting shadows 
on the sun-lit path. Not a bad outlook 1 

Mrs. Trowbridge watched man and horse until an 
abrupt curve in the road suddenly deprived her of 
that mild recreation. Then she turned in-doors rather 
listlessly. The day was so lovely and so tempting. 
She wished George had thjought of the buggy in due 
season ! She would have loved so to ride through the 
woods on this bright spring morning. She saw in 
fancy the dew-drops still lingering on the long sprays 
of the blackberry bushes in the corners of the fences ! 
She was in accord with the anxious little feathered 
architects of the woods too, ^and loved to catch the 
saucy bright eye of the frisky squirrels. Then too, 
as it had been months since she had enjoyed the 
privilege of talking with a woman of her own color, 
she would have gladly ridden that eight miles to 
have said howdy "^to Mrs. Stanhope. She looked at 
the clock! Only nine I Twelve hours of dismal soli- 
tude to be gotten through with as best she might 1 
She turned resolutel3^oward the noisy old sewing 
machine. She wouldWem all those sheets to-day. 
There was no one to be annoyed by the clatter. She 
smiled a trifle bitterly at the recollection of her 
iiusband’s injunction to “amuse herself.” How and 
with what, she wondered ! She could always work I 
It was her solace. Her nerve restorer. So, with the 
pile of unhemmed sheets in a chair by her side she set 


70 


mTHOUT BLEMISH. 


the machine in motion, and as it rattled a tuneless 
accompaniment, ’Riah, in the kitchen uncomfortably 
close at hand, lifted up her voice in melodious assertion 
that There's restin’ by and by." 

'Riah was always songful when Mr. Trowbridge rode 
away. 

And thus Mrs. Trowbridge amused herself. 


CHAPTER VI. 


HARDLINES. 

H ARDLINES was the name of Mrs. Stanhope’s 
swamp place. The plantation over on the 
Louisiana side of the river, which although it was the 
bone and sinew of all her prosperity, and the power 
behind the throne to which Stanhope Hall was 
indebted for its stately luxury, she always visited with 
a sense of condescension, in no way diminished by the 
abject reverence paid her by the humble tenants 
thereof. 

The quaint nomenclature of Southern plantation 
homes, offers an interesting field for research to the 
curious, as some connection is generally traceable 
between the name of a place and the disposition and 
future of its original owners, who are, presumably, its 
sponsors in baptism. How Hardlines came by its 
peculiarly significant but rather repellent cognomen, 
was not at all conjectural. The place had been in the 
Stanhope family for only three generations past. 
When the grandfather of Mrs. Stanhope’s husband 
had redeemed it from its primitive wildness he had 
sworn a rough oath that it should be “ hard lines with 


72 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


him, if he did not render it one of the most attractive 
and valuable places on the Mississippi River between 
Vicksburg and New Orleans.” He had kept his oath 
with such inflexibility, that the place, as it appeared to 
the eyes of Mr. Trowbridge, cantering briskly toward 
its quarter yard this fresh spring morning certainly 
did not suggest that the lines had fallen to its present 
owner in very hard places. Hardlines was one of the 
show places of the parish, and as Mrs. Stanhope swept 
its broad acres with the strong field-glass which formed 
a portion of the furniture of the house at Hardlines, 
she felt quite a glow of self-satisfaction over the neat 
and trim aspect of the place. 

Thirteen hundred acres of cleared land fringed about 
with as many more of wood-land, alternate ridges and 
low lying sloughs, not uncomely features with their 
dark clear water, thickly sown with creamy water-lilies, 
formed the real estate characteristics of the inheritance 
that Eustis Stanhope was destined to come into, not 
many years hence. The cabins that stood in a sort of 
hollow square around a space in which were symmetri- 
cally planted a number of locust trees, were uniform in 
design, substantial in structure, and without reproach 
in the matter of leaky roofs and unreliable chimneys. 
Every couple of cabins was linked together by a cis- 
tern and its tributary gutters. In the midst of the 
clustering locusts, whose white flower clusters flung a 
heavy sweetness out on the morning air, stood the 


HARDLINES. 


73 


meeting house, which was the architectural feature of 
the quarters, eclipsed only by the stately gin-house 
nearer the river. The four gates which gave ingress 
to the quarter yard from the different points of the 
compass were all new and strong and possessed indi- 
vidually of hinges that hinged, and latches that 
latched. No ordinary boast in that locality. The 
steam gin on the place was its special glory, being a 
new and modernized triumph of masonry, machinery 
and roominess, for which Mr. Trowbridge himself felt a 
double degree of admiration, such as one feels for a 
thing of beauty in whose creation one has had a 
hand. 

Mr. Trowbridge was Mrs. Stanhope’s friendly 
adviser, as well as her son’s legal guardian, so that his 
interest in the affairs of Hardlines was only secondary 
to that felt in Bendemma place. His advice and mas- 
culine judgment had been called into requisition when 
the burning of the Hardlines gin, by a laborer dis- 
satisfied with the year’s settlement, had necessitated 
rebuilding, and he quite prided himself on the outcome. 

After the meeting house and the gin, the residence 
on the place was quite insignificant. A small five- 
roomed cottage, white-washed extensively, wood- 
ceiled interiorly, set squarely in a square yard in the 
midst of the cotton fields, possessing all the advantages 
of a good outlook, none of the attractions of a home. 
A few walnut and cotton-wood and fig and pecan trees. 


74 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


planted irregularly within the plank inclosure, with a 
small plot set apart for flowers, should any one care to 
grapple with the weeds that flourished so luxuriously 
and achieved greatness with such magical quickness, 
comprised the premises. But it was “ good enough." 
The plantation house had been but a small item in the 
calculation of owners who vibrated between some 
northern watering place in summer. New Orleans in 
winter and a permanent (?) hill residence, yielding 
ready credence to the fiction that it was unhealthy on 
the plantation, save during that short period in the 
spring time, when the fish bit well, and it was lawful 
yet to hunt the abundant game of the woods. 

Mr. Trowbridge glanced with some surprise over the 
fence, as he dismounted at the rack close by the front 
gate, to where two childish forms, their faces com- 
pletely screened from observation, were plying rakes 
and hoes, very much too large for their tiny hands, in 
unskilled vigor, about a small mound of earth they had 
rescued from the grassy chaos. 

“ Hillo, who have we here? " He touched the sun- 
bonnets with his riding whip as he came opposite the 
small mound builders on his way across the grass- 
grown brick walk to the house. 

Olga and Virginia started from their stooping 
posture, and pushing back the cumbersome sun- 
bonnets that had such a bothersome trick of slipping 
over their noses, displayed to Mr. Trowbridge’s still 


HARDLINES. 


75 


more astonished eyes two pretty white faces and four 
wondering eyes. 

His glance wandered from Ginia’s blonde head and 
fair skin to Olga’s serene face and lovely eyes. There 
his gaze rested with a puzzled look at first, then it 
deepened into one of — well — dismay, it would 
seem. 

“ Where did you children come from, and who do 
you belong to anyway?” 

Mr. Trowbridge asked this question with the 
asperity that always came into his voice when some- 
thing jarred upon the finely spun organization which 
was presumed to constitute his nerves. 

Virginia’s invariable instinct was to take shelter in 
Olga. She did it now promptly. Shrinking closer to 
the child who had been friend and protector ever since 
she had taken her by the hand when forsaken of all 
the rest of the world, and led her sobbing into the 
presence of the matron, she fastened her black eyes 
upon their interlocutor in a half frightened stare. 

Mr. Trowbridge laughed a mechanical mirthless 
laugh at her action and attitude. His chief interest 
seemed centered in Olga. 

“ Who are you, child ? ” 

“We are Mrs. Stanhope’s orphans, sir, and, oh, 
please, you are standing right on our zenia seed, they 
are in that paper. We want to make a flower garden 
here.” 


76 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


He stepped back from the seed, shoved the package 
carelessly forward with his boot, and said : 

“Then you live here?” 

“ No, sir. We live over at Stanhope Hall. We’re 
just going to stay here one month. And we are sorry, 
for it’s so pretty, and we love the river and the boats, 
don’t we, Ginia? and would rather stay always.” 

“ Then you never lived here ? ” 

“ Oh, no, sir, we lived in Cleveland, a great way from 
here.” ^ 

“ And you are sisters ? ” There was almost a coaxing 
sound in the voice that asked this question. 

“ Oh, no, sir, Virginia is a little girl that I found one 
morning crying at our gate, and because I found her 
it seems like she belonged to me.” 

“ Whose gate ? ” 

“ The gate of the ’sylum that Mrs. Stanhope took 
us from.” 

“ And who found you ? ” 

“ I don’t know, sir. I think I lived there for always.” 

“ To be sure ! no doubt ! and — I’m an accursed fool, 
that’s all.” Mr. Trowbridge muttered these words 
more to himself than in answer to Olga. Then he 
took his handkerchief out and wiped his brow, still 
looking down upon Mrs. Stanhope’s orphans in a 
meditative fashion that was decidedly disconcerting to 
them. 

“I wish he’d go on ! I’m ’fraid of him.” 


HARDLINES. 


77 


Ginia never meant this whisper to float from the 
shelter of her sun-bonnet up to the altitude of Mr. 
Trowbridge’s ears, but it did nevertheless, and had the 
effect apparently of startling him from a profound 
reverie, for he laughed again in that mechanical 
mirthless fashion, and moved on toward the house, 
where he was soon involved in one of the perennial 
discussions which he and Mrs. Stanhope held touching 
Eustis and his affairs : 

“You know,” said ^Mrs. Stanhope, re-tying a 
package of papers thar Mr. Trowbridge had been 
looking over, “the desire of my life is, that when 
Eustis comes into his property, he shall have no 
occasion for reproaching his mother with lack of 
devotion to his material interests. I’m quite sure 
Hardlines is in much better condition than when his 
poor father came into possession of it. In fact, it is 
in prime condition for his occupancy, I think.” 

Mrs. Stanhope’s eyes wandered through the open 
windows of the room where this interview was taking 
place, out over the loamy acres, where a score or more 
of plows were visible breaking ground for another crop. 
Beyond that, to where the white and green of the 
quarters made so pleasing a picture of thrift and care- 
ful supervision. She was evidently satisfied with the 
stewardship now drawing to a close. 

“ Eustis, you know,” she said, in continuance of the 
only subject that held any interest for her, “ will be of 


78 


WITHOUT BLEMISH, 


age this coming June three years. That will pass like 
a day.” 

“ Yes ! I know ! but — you spoke a little while back 
of Hardlines being ready for his occupancy! You 
don’t mean that Eustis shall make his home here? ” 

“ That will be as he sees best. I expect my son to 
use his own discretion when he shall have attained his 
majority. My preference would be for him to remain 
with me always. But — who knows? Boys tire of their 
mother’s society quicker than of any other.” 

Mr. Trowbridge fastened his dark eyes upon herface 
almost imploringly as he said : “ Whatever you do, do 
not let Eustis take up his residence on this place when 
he leaves college. There is no surer way on earth of 
sending him to the dogs. There is no society, no 
rational entertainment, nothing! A man must either 
turn monk or devil.” 

“You went to live on Bendemma when you were 
fresh from college, and I am sure ” 

“Don’t cite me, whatever you do! Gad, I should 
hate to know of any boy duplicating my life. And 
yet ” — he shook off his growing excitement by an effort 
— laughed — and resumed his seat — “I suppose there 
are worse men in the world.” 

Mrs. Stanhope followed his motions and words with 
no little surprise. While entertaining the most exalted 
opinion of Mr. Trowbridge’s judgment and practical 
good sense, she had never had occasion to think him 


HAJ^DLINES. 


79 


lacking in self-esteem ; therefore, this violent and 
voluntary self-abasement struck her as altogether with- 
out parallel in her experience of Eustis’s guardian. 

Olga came silently into the room and stood un- 
noticed at Mrs. Stanhope’s elbow. She had a request 
to prefer, but was too well-bred to interrupt her elders. 

“ What does that little gipsy want ? I know she has 
a petition. I see it in her eyes. Let her offer it, please, 
and then we will look over those last accounts of sales. 
Your cotton ought to have brought ten and an eighth. 
It was middling fair.” 

Mr. Trowbridge nodded to Olga, then took up a 
bulky package of papers from the open desk. 

Olga only wanted permission for herself and Ginia to 
walk down to the river’s edge to throw sticks in for Shep 
to swim after. To seej^Shep, the big black dog who 
belonged to the Hardlines establishment, plunge into 
the swift-flowing current of the Mississippi River, was 
a source of perpetual delight to the two orphans. She 
glided swiftly out of sight as soon as Mrs. Stanhope’s 
rather indifferent, “of course, child,” fell on her ear. 

“Who is that child ?” Mr. Trowbridge asked, 
following the little slim figure with his eyes as she glee- 
fully bounded back to where Ginia was waiting. 

Then Mrs. Stanhope gave him a full account of how 
Olga had, in a manner, been forced upon her by 
Virginia’s refusal to come without her. 

“Virginia is beautiful,” she said, with pride in her 


8o 


WITHOUT BLEMISH 


own good taste, “ but Olga is an immensely useful little 
creature.” 

“ I have seen them both and should say the gipsy 
was the prettier of the two. - But what did you want 
with them ? ” 

“ I can’t say that I did want them. I wanted one. 
You know Eustis will be a man soon, and, of course, 
he will be filling his life with a young man’s pleasures 
and distractions. I look forward to the time when 
Virginia will replace by a daughter’s care and affection, 
the void that will be left when Eustis takes to himself 
a wife.” 

“ If there is any thing in physiognomy your chances 
of a daughter’s care and affection are better with the 
gipsy. The child has a noble face.” 

Mrs. Stanhope made a repellent gesture with her 
long thin hands. 

“ Never ! never ! do you know ” 

Then there came to her in time to seal her lips the 
promise she had given to that gentle humanitarian 
(from whose impartial guardianship she had taken Olga 
as well as Virginia), never to permit any suspicion that 
might enter her own mind to escape at her lips. 

“Do I know what ? ” Mr. Trowbridge looked her 
so determinedly in the face, that her eyes fell before 
his, and substitution for her interrupted utterance 
became awkwardly difficult. 

“Do you know, I was about to say, I sometimes think 


HARDLINES. 


8i 


perhaps I made a mistake in taking these children in 
hand at all ! When I was up North, I was made to feel 
like such a cumberer of the earth, that I thought I 
should really enjoy trying to do good to somebody — ” 

“And don’t you enjoy it?” 

“Yes — but — I can hardly explain to you what strange 
misgivings I have about that child, Olga, sometimes. 
She seems — she seems, well, not like other children. 
There is something so intensely quiet about her. She 
impresses one with the idjea of having been suppressed 
in her infancy. There is nothing joyous about her. 
But she is a good docile little creature, and a real com- 
fort to me at all times.” 

“Then, why worry? Accept the goods the gods 
provide ye, and let the dinT future take care of itself. 
How old is she?” Mr. Trowbridge’s voice had re- 
sumed its accustomed airy levity which conveyed the 
impression, generally, of a refusal to give serious con- 
sideration to any thing beyond the most urgent 
demands of the hour. 

“ Virginia is ten and Olga is fourteen. They have 
been with me now several years. This is the first 
time I have let them leave off their lessons to come to 
Hardlines with me, and they enjoy it immensely.” 

Mr. Trowbridge rose while she was talking. The 
morning had slipped away over their papers and dis- 
cussions. The early dinner hour was approaching. 
Then his ride homeward — it had just occurred to him 


82 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


he would stop on the way home to see an old pen- 
sioner of his, formerly his slave. 

“And Eustis?” he said, somewhat inconsequently. 

“ Will be twenty-one in little more than three years. 
Excuse me, your impatience is visible. You have a 
long ride ahead of you, and the Hardlines cook is cele- 
brated for unpunctuality.” 

She left the room, and Mr. Trowbridge paced the 
floor restlessly. He stopped in front of the window that 
overlooked the ragged little mound where the children 
had deposited their precious seed. The hoes and the 
rakes lay on the ground just as they had flung them, 
when the sight of Shep’s red lolling tongue had sug- 
gested the river to them. 

That girl is going to develop into a dusky divinity. 
Fourteen and eighteen! Mrs. Trowbridge has sown 
dragon seed. I — must see old Dora. 

These interjectional clews to Mr. Trowbridge’s vein 
of thought seemed to force their way to his lips. He 
had the habit of many men who have much time for 
lonely reflection, uttering audibly things never meant 
for other ears. 

The clangor of a bell that might have done duty 
successfully in a four-storied tavern, smote upon his 
ear with torturing vibrations. He promptly obeyed 
the clamorous summons to dinner. 

He faced Mrs. Stanhope at table, but on the right 
sat Olga. 


HARDLINES. 


83 


Olga, with her nut-brown skin, her waving glossy- 
black hair, and her wonderful eyes ; so large, so soft, so 

dark, and so familiar to the master of the Bendemma 

plantation. 


" CHAPTER VII. 


OLD DORA. 


HEN Mr. Trowbridge rode away from Hardlines 



an hour or two later, he turned his horse’s head 


in the direction of his own place without once sending 
his thoughts in advance toward the lonely woman he 
had left behind him. The sun was still high in the 
heavens, and he would have plenty of time in which 
to execute his original plan of going through the gin, 
to see that the “ stands ” and “ saws ” and “ brushes " 
had been properly put away after the taking-off of the 
last crop ; but he was impelled forward by a feeling of 
dissatisfaction and unrest. The bridle-rein hung 
loosely over his horse’s arching neck. He was per- 
mitted to select his own gait, and got over the ground 
in a lazy sort of fox-trot, whinneying gently now and 
then in pleased anticipation, no doubt, of soon resting 
within the sacred precincts of his own stall. Perhaps 
equine reflections on the superiority of his own grass- 
land to that at Hardlines filled his brain to the exclu- 
sion of any thought over the passage of time, for every 
now and then he would deliberately halt and bite off 


OLD DORA. 


85 


the tender top-shoots from the sassafras or other 
bushes that swung tantalizingly close to his nose. A 
more deliberate pause than usual aroused his rider 
from an attitude of listless indifference. 

Mr. Trowbridge gave the reins a violent jerk, sup- 
plementing it by an unprovoked application of the 
whip. The bay was used to this explosive change of 
moods on the part of his master, and, no doubt, had 
long since instituted injurious comparisons between 
men and beasts. Philosophically pricking up his ears, 
he trotted steadily forward, heroically regarding the nod- 
ding sassafras sprouts askance through the corners of 
his eye, bearing forward like a horse with an object in 
view, until he was once more reminded of the curb, and 
of the presence of a superior being, by being turned 
off the public road into a crooked but well-defined 
path, that led to an outlying field on the Bendemma 
place, which, owing to its near proximity to the wood- 
lands, had been selected as the location of the stock- 
minder’s cabin. 

Through the woods, redolent of sweet gums, and 
brightened by the low, wide-branching dog-wood in the 
full of its snowy blossom-tide, man and horse kept on 
their way until the gleam of a new rail fence penetrated 
the gathering shadows ; and to this fence Mr. Trow- 
bridge hitched his horse and climbed over the stile that 
led to the cabin it inclosed, scattering by his ingress a 
noisy flock of geese, ducks and chickens that were 


86 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


fluttering and fussing about the door-step in impatient 
demand for the evening meal. 

The cabin was comfortable and new, and a conces- 
sion to the ornamental requirements of the age had 
been made by painting the door in alternate streaks of 
green and brown. A smooth sleek yellow dog bounded 
fiercely around the corner, at sound of foot-falls, gave 
one aggressive bark, recognized the master, and came 
squirming and cringing with an apologetic whine to his 
feet. Mr. Trowbridge stood upon the lower of the two 
cypress puncheons that formed the front steps and 
rapped smartly on the gallery floor as a summons. The 
ducks, relieved from their first apprehensions, waddled 
back and quacked close about him. The geese craned 
their long necks inquisitively around his heels. A sec- 
ond and more prolonged application of his leaded whip 
handle to the gallery floor was answered by a voice in 
his rear. 

He turned toward it. An old man, bent with age, 
was climbing over the stile With a sack of corn swung 
across his back and a cow’s horn, attached to a long 
leathern thong, swaying from his neck. 

“ Reck’n Dora mus’ be plantin’ her okry seed out’n 
her truck patch, boss; she git deefer and deefer every 
year. I’ll fotch her wid de horn ef you want to see 
her.” 

“Yes, I want to see her, Reub, but never mind the 
horn. I can find her. How are your hogs?” 


OLD DORA. 


87 


Hogs ! whar’s any hogs ! who kin raise hogs whar's 
thar’s ten niggers to steal ’em to every one that tries 
to raise ’em hones’ ? whar’s any hogs ! I ain’t got none. 
Ben on my feet ever sence ten o’clock this mornin’ 
lookin’ fur that ole blue sow Bet. I tell you, boss, if I 
wur in yo’ place — ” Mr. Trowbridge who knew by expe- 
rience that whenever Reub reached the advisory point, 
he was prepared to supplement complaint with a series 
of amendatory suggestions, hastened to extinguish 
him. 

“Well, old man, something really must be done to 
protect your industries. Come down to the house 
to-morrow and we will talk it all over. At present I 
am in something of a hurry. I want to see Dora for a 
few moments. I’ll go to her in the garden.” 

“ All right, boss. I’se got them mules to feed yit, and 
you knows the way to ole woman’s truck patch.” 

So Mr. Trowbridge soon found himself in presence 
of the woman whom he had ridden three miles out 
of his way to see, and whose comfortable maintenance 
was one of his especial obligations ; for helpless and use- 
less as old Dora was now, she had been much to her 
master in the old days. What she had been to him in 
the ante-bellum days, (when, fresh from college, he had 
come into his majority and the management of his own 
property simultaneously), it would be hard to describe 
and impossible to over-rate. 

When he had selected to make his permanent resi- 


88 


WITHOUT BLEMISH 


dence on the plantation, bringing to bear upon his new 
life a plenitude of luxurious habits and a total lack of 
practical experience of any sort, he had installed Dora, 
(who had been trained by his mother, long since dead, 
in all housewifely skill), as his housekeeper and general 
superintendent of domestic affairs, and had never found 
cause to regret his choice, at least so far as his own 
material interests had been concerned. 

Dora was one of those characters, plentiful enough at 
one time in the South, but rarely if ever to be met with 
now, for good and patent reasons. 

Then the matrons of the South imparted all of their 
own skill and knowledge of housewifery to some one of 
their slaves, selected for superior intelligence, assured 
that the labor she bestowed in instructing would be 
compensated for ten-fold in her own old age or in the 
new life of married son or daughter. Then it was until 
death did them part between mistress and maid. No 
Southern plantation house was complete without just 
such an official as old Dora had been to young Trow- 
bridge. 

If the old Grecian custom of erecting temples com- 
memorative of certain characters or events still pre- 
vailed, a fane to the extinct Southern mammy might be 
in order. 

Without being either the cook, the milk-woman, the 
laundress, the gardener or the house-maid, there was 
not one of these functionaries whose place she could 


OLD DORA. 


89 


not fill most satisfactorily on occasion, and all of whom 
regarded her with an admixture of admiration and 
terror. Always patient, cheerful and energetic, the care- 
less young master had accepted his comfort at her 
hands, very much as he accepted greater comforts at a 
higher Hand, not exactly thanklessly, but thoughtlessly, 
and as altogether a matter of course. 

Personally Dora would be best described by nega- 
tions. She was not good looking, she was not sym- 
metrical, she was not graceful. She was just fat, tall, 
strong, yellow and wrinkled ; with small black twink- 
ling eyes; with coarse black straight hair, in which she 
took exceeding pride, as affording irrefragable proof 
that her boast of Indian blood had some foundation in 
fact. 

Dora had other Indian characteristics ; among them 
implacable hatred for any one who had ever inflicted 
upon her an injury, real or fancied. 

When Mr. Trowbridge had brought a wife home to 
the Bendemma place, Dora, then in the sixth year 
of her undisputed reign over the premises, had 
resented it so sullenly and viciously, albeit wordlessly, 
that Mrs. Trowbridge had insisted upon her removal. 

Dora had not waited for this indignity to be put upon 
her. She had resigned the keys of office with the dig- 
nity of royalty abdicating, and requested permission to 
retire to the lower sphere of a field hand. 

Mr. Trowbridge holding a forced hand had accepted 


90 


WITHOUT BLEMISH, 


her resignation. That had all happened before Reb 
times’' as Dora herself would have told you. 

But, either from gratitude or from some more endur- 
ing motive, Mr. Trowbridge had never ceased to charge 
himself with Dora’s maintenance, even when, as a free 
woman she was possessed of the inalienable right of 
migration or starvation or any other privilege of citizen- 
ship. 

For Mr. Trowbridge, Dora had always retained the 
most loyal affection and reverence. 

For Mrs. Trowbridge she nourished the most uncom- 
promising animosity. 

At the time of Dora’s coming into power her family 
had consisted of a husband, two stalwart sons and an 
undeniably pretty daughter several shades lighter in 
complexion than herself. But when “ Reb times come ” 
the boys had gone to join the army of their liberators 
and Rosetta — well, Rosetta, she too, later on, had been 
seized with the contagion that possessed the newly 
freed, and one morning old Dora awoke to find that she 
was bereaved indeed, and that her husband, old, rheu- 
matic, and^ever an object of over-fondness on her part, 
constituted her only family tie. 

Mr. Trowbridge had condoled with her, with appar- 
ent sincerity, when, on his own return from the four 
years’ useless struggle he found her still weeping for her 
pretty Rosetta and refusing to be comforted, but Dora 
had received his condolence in stubborn silence. 


OLD DORA. 


91 


Mr. Trowbridge never failed to inquire semi-annually 
into the condition of Dora’s health and the state of 
her larder, but as his periodical visit was not due by a 
full month yet, Dora looked up from her okra-plant- 
ing with natural surprise as she heard his voice coming 
to her, over her garden fence. 

“ Well, mammy, how does your garden grow. Like 
Mistress Mary’s ? — With cockle shells and fairy bells 
and cowslips in a row? ” he quoted. Dora was used to 
his bantering style of address in the olden time when 
she had been so necessary to his comfort, and she 
brightened visibly now at sound of his voice. 

“ Go ’way, chile,” she made answer, recklessly cast- 
ing the remainder of her okra seeds in one spot, and 
hobbling toward him, “ I don’t know nothin’ ’bout 
cockle shells, but I ’lows cuckle burs is cornin’ up right 
lively in this 'ere truck patch.” 

Then leaning on the inner side of the fence from him 
she poured into his patient and sympathetic ears the 
accumulated worries and trials of the period interven- 
ing since his last visit. He had expected this and was 
ready with a proposed remedy for every woe. But 
the sun was sinking beneath the tree-tops, and even by 
taking all the short cuts he could not reach home now 
before late supper time. Dora was garrulous, even 
more so than usual. 

The prolonged tooting of old Reub’s horn signified 
that the plow-hands were at liberty to stop work. 


92 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


I must be going now, old lady." Mr. Trowbridge 
broke a long splinter from the rough picket on which 
his hand was resting, but made no other motion 
toward departing. 

“ Well, chile, ’tis gittin’dark sho’ ’nough, an’ you’ll be 
gittin’ a col’ in yo’ back fus’ thing.’’ 

Mr. Trowbridge stood absently chewing the end of 
the splinter he had broken off. 

“ I say. Aunt Dora ! you’ve never heard from — Rosa 
yet ! ’’ there was a strange hesitancy in his voice and 
manner. 

Dora’s face grew a shade darker. Her hand shook 
as she lifted it on high. Her shrill voice was high- 
pitched with excitement : 

“ No, and I hopes to God I never will. I can’t, you 
know! ’’ 

‘‘You’re hard on her,’’ said the master, throwing 
away the splinter, and feeling in his pocket for the 
tobacco which old Dora always exacted as a parting 
douceur. 

“ Hard on her! Me hard on her? Me, the po’ ole 
mammy that loved her better’n I ever loved God-a- 
mighty hisself ? An’ de Lord done punish me for it. 
He done punish me wid the loneliness in my old age, 
and de back-ache, and de pains which racks me day en 
night. Ef she’d only a waited a leetle wile longer it 
ud a ben better. She warn’t in no fix to be knockin’ 
bout the work Po’ gal ! My purty gal Rosa.’’ 


OLD DORA. 


93 


Then with sudden violence old Dora put out both 
shriveled hands repellently. 

“ Go ’way, chile, go ’way, ’fore I gits hot en forgits that 
you’s you, en me’s me.” 

Instead she hobbled vigorously away herself leaving 
Waring Trowbridge alone by the gate. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


ROSETTA. 


HE lost Rosetta had been at once old Dora’s shame 



i and her pride ! The shame, however, was but 
dimly recognized as such. What would you have? 
Had not Dora’s own mitigated hue its origin in an 
admixture of white blood in which she openly gloried ? 

Did not the somewhat pallid bronze of her own 
color authorize her proud boast of being “ mixed 
Ingun en w’ite folks en nary drap uv nigger ! ” And A, 
when, transmitted through a fresh infusion of white 
blood into her child’s veins, the result was so satisfying 
from a physiological point of view, how could she 
grieve ? She was undoubtedly the mother of the pret- 
tiest girl in all that neighborhood. 

The virtual master of the Bendemma plantation dur- 
ing Waring Trowbridge’s minority had been an over- 
seer of marked good-looks, but who, in common with 
all his class, was devoid of refinement and entirely 
uneducated. Natural shrewdness and plenty of energy 
were the only prerequisites for a good overseer. His 
small straight nose, well shaped mouth and fine brows 
were clearly traceable in Rosetta’s pretty face, but to 


/ROSETTA. 


95 


the coarser maternal contribution she was indebted for 
her soft large eyes, abundant black hair and strong per- 
fect teeth, as also for the superb setting of her head 
upon a pair of very erect shoulders. 

Many a crime is converted into a peccadillo by custom 
or trend of local thought. How could Dora, all untu- 
tored as she was, be expected to entertain any very 
acute perceptious of the divine origin of chastity, or the 
holiness of conjugal fidelity. In an atmosphere where 
the social restrictions that hedge virtue about with a 
thorny safe-guard are confined exclusively to the upper 
and fairer ranks of womankind, why should one whom 
no one recognized as belonging to the hedged-in sister- 
hood voluntary prick herself with its thorns? If indeed 
“ where is no law, is no transgression," then was Dora 
without sin among her fellows in the particular of her 
pretty Rosetta. And so the mother s pride naturally 
and immeasurably out-weighed the woman’s shame. 

With all her mental deficiencies and moral imperfec- 
tions more than counterbalanced by her extreme 
prettiness and an amount of vivacity that made her 
mother call her “ the peertest as well as the purtiest gal 
of ’em all,’’ the child Rosetta, by the time she was ten 
years old, had become the object of her mother’s very 
injudicious idolatry. It pleased the woman’s ignorant 
fancy to see the girl flitting as free as a bird about the 
‘‘big house’’ that stood tenantless during Rosetta’s 
childhood, and Waring Trowbridge’s college days. The 


96 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


house was exclusively under Dora’s charge, and, while 
she did the periodic scrubbing and cleaning and airing, 
the child would flit about the unpeopled rooms after 
her, growing quite familiar with her own bright face in 
the dusty mirrors in the darkened chambers, and 
acquiring perilously luxurious habits as she experi- 
mented on all the easy chairs by turns, or tested the 
softness of the beds and lounges, or swayed lazily to 
and fro in the netted hammock on the front gallery 
until she came to feel quite a proprietary interest in 
the master’s belongings, regarding his final home-com- 
ing from college as an end of her peaceful reign and 
the intrusion of a usurper. Dora took a secret delight 
in the apparent oneness between the child and her 
refined surroundings at the cottage, and she shared 
Rosetta’s regrets that the home-coming of her young 
master would debar her from these stolen delights of 
social eminence. She found it harder than usual to 
take the girl back to the cabin at the other end of the 
quarter-lot, on the night before Waring was expected 
to reach Bendemma. 

She b’longs just thar,” she said, standing patiently 
on the threshold of the young man’s bed-room, waiting 
to lock up for the night. She smiled with patient in- 
dulgence on Rosetta, who willfully lingered in the big 
plush rocking-chair, saucily nodding to her own image 
in the big glass of the dressing-case as she rocked with 
tremendous vigor. Then, when patience ceased to be 


ROSETTA. 


97 


a virtue, she sent a gentle “Come, honey, mammy’s 
a-waitinV’ back into the darkening room, with no ap- 
parent effect. Rosetta rocked on, as she jerked out an 
answer : “ Wait, mammy ! It’s the ve’y las’ time ! I’ll 
haff t’ keep away fum y’here w’en w’ite folks come. 
Oh ! it’s so nice here ! I’se gwine t’ let de cat die ! ” 
And Dora waited with supernatural patience until the 
rocking came to a slow, gradual stop, and the girl 
joined her in the doorway, flushed, tired and petulant. 
But altogether lovely in the mother’s eyes. 

Under more rigid skies, Dora’s satisfaction in her 
pretty offspring might have found its alloy on her own 
hearthstone. As it was, it was not only unmixed, but 
was shared by Reuben, Rosetta’s accredited father, and 
Dora’s complacent husband. Reuben, never back- 
ward in expending the full force of parental authority 
or unparental wrath upon the two boys of ebon-hued 
authenticity that completed his family circle, was 
scarcely behind Dora herself in injudicious efforts to 
convince Rosetta that she w^-s born into the ornamental 
ranks of society, and must demean herself accordingly. 
By dint of constantly assuring her, that “ she wur cut 
out fur a lady, she wur,” or that “ she wurn’t never 
meant fur a fiel’ han’, she wurn’t,” the two had suc- 
ceeded, to their own satisfaction, in reducing Rosetta-, 
by the time she was eighteen years old, to an attractive, 
but altogether undesirable, appanage to the Bendemma 
establishment. 


98 


WITHOUT BLEMISH, 


It was only at first that Rosetta frowned upon the 
owner of the cottage in which she had come to feel so 
much at home as an unwelcome usurper! Only at 
first that she shunned the big house. 

Rosetta being what they all between them had made 
of her, and Dora being as she was, her fond heart was 
well-nigh broken in twain, when, one morning in the 
second year of the war, she awoke to find herself 
childless, and, like Rachel of old, refused to be com- 
forted. The two boys and Rosetta gone ! Reuben 
and she left alone to wonder and to grieve ! The 
Marine Brigade had been anchored in the river, just off 
the Bendemma place, the night before ! It was gone 
now 1 It was not hard to guess how the “ children ” had 
gotten away! The Marine Brigade worked woe for 
some hearthstone whenever it cast anchor off the 
defenseless plantations ! Siich bereavements were of 
every-day occurrence in those troubled times ! Children, 
young and lusty, eagerly hastening forward to meet the 
blue-coated heralds of freedom “ half way ! ” Parents, 
old and incredulous, waiting in patient bondage until 
the wondrous story should be proved true beyond a 
peradventure ! Youth impetuously grasping at the 
opportunity to enter upon the new and untried privi- 
leges of the freeman ! Age, timorously questioning 
whether the old order were not the best that mortal 
man could desire ! It had happened all around her, to 
all her neighbors, even in the Bendemma quarters ; but 


ROSETTAi 


99 


that such a blow should fall on her, much less be dealt 
her by the beloved hand of her petted Rosetta, had 
never presented itself to Dora as even a remote pos- 
sibility. And when the blow did fall, it was with such 
crushing force that she was never the same afterward. 
She went about the cabin on the first* morning of her 
bereavement with the restless activity of one to whom 
inactivity was pain. She could not be idle even in her 
woe ! From the wash-tub, where she toiled laboriously 
over the board until the white lather hid the murky 
water, she walked softly, as if there was some dead 
thing there that must be dealt with reverently, toward 
where Reuben sat brooding and troubled. With the 
habit of life-long dependence upon a stronger race in 
full force within her, she said to him, in suppressed 
lamentation : Reube, ole man, Fd take it some easier 

ef ole miss were ’bove groun’ to talk wid ! My 
w’ite folks allers seemed to smoove things out fur 
me. 

And Reuben, lifting his bowed head, answered with 
grim significance : “ W’ite folks ain’ smooved things out 
this time, ole woman ! That gal ain’ never cheeped 
sence the Rifles lef’ de parish.” 

(The Rifles was the company that Waring Trow- 
bridge had gone out in command of very promptly ! 
looking very bright and handsome and gay in his new 
gray uniform.) 

And Dora had said, with a sob in her voice: “You’re 


lOO 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


right, Reube! You're right, ole man,” and then had 
gone savagely to work again at the wash-tub. 

But all this had happened long years before the even- 
ing when Mr. Trowbridge, chewing a splinter broken 
from her garden-fence, had aroused old Dora to a tremb- 
ling pitch of wrath by carelessly asking her about her 
daughter. 


CHAPTER IX. 


A RETURNED WANDERER. 

pONGRATULATE me, children ! ” 

O Mrs. Stanhope laid an open letter down on her lap 
and taking off her eye-glasses wiped the eyes and then 
the glasses and smiled benignantly upon Ginia first, 
allowing the remnant of her satisfaction as it were to 
alight upon Olga’s eagerly receptive face. 

“ Your son is coming home ! ” It is Olga who defines 
• the source of her joy. 

Yes.” 

They were sitting together in the pleasant library at 
Stanhope Hall, with all the windows and doors wide 
open. Through them an overpowering odor of cape 
jasmine floated from the great shrubs that shed their 
yellowing petals close by the hall door. The good 
news had not come as a surprise, for Mrs. Stanhope 
had herself fixed the season of her son’s return, but 
the letter that she sat handling in a caressing fashion 
was to tell her that he was actually coming in one 
month, and her joy thereat overflowed in that sudden 
demand for congratulation. 

** He has never been home since he first went away, 


102 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


has he?” Olga asked, skillfully prolonging the 
mother’s pleasure, and herself entering eagerly into the 
great joy that came into the eyes and voice of her 
benefactress whenever Eustis was the theme. 

“ No, we both thought it best not. It was expen- 
sive and not advisable for either of us. It would have 
spoiled me, if not Kim.” 

“ Mercy ! Then you hardly know how your own son 
looks ! ” says Ginia, whose forte was not imagination, 
and who was sordidly practical with all her dainty 
personality. 

He has sent a multiplicity of photos home ! ” 
says Mrs. Stanhope, turning loving eyes toward 
where the latest edition of Eustis Stanhope hung in 
an elaborate frame over her sewing machine. “ Olga, • 
the light on that picture is miserable. It was you who 
suggested hanging it there.” 

There was a sharp intonation of dissatisfaction in the 
mother’s voice that made Olga glance in surprise from 
her face up to where the picture hung receiving the 
full benefit of light from the large side windows. 

“ He looks very handsome there,” says Ginia, as 
their three pairs of eyes rest on the picture, “ very — 
very — ” 

“ Determined,” says Olga, settling Ginia’s doubts as 
to what idea the firmly compressed lips conveyed. 

I wonder if he will^think you much changed,” says 
Ginia, bringing her critical eyes back to the stately 


A RETURNED WANDERER, 


103 


form and worn face ♦of the mother. “ I suppose you 
haven’t sent over a series of photos to him, have you ? ” 

“ No, not one ! ” 

The girl’s suggestion seemed to startle Mrs. Stan- 
hope. Would she not strike Eustis in the light of a 
disagreeable surprise ? 

“ I wonder if he will find his mother much changed ? ” 
she said, almost anxiously. My boy ! who left me in 
caps and roundabouts and comes back to me the pos- 
sessor of a vote and a — ” 

“ Mustache let us hope,” says Virginia, who had a 
precocious appreciation of such aids to manly beauty. 
“ I hope he has. It won’t be like having a real man at 
the head of the house, you know, unless his voice is 
deep and strong and comes to you from under a mus- 
tache that he’s always twisting. I’m quite sure I 
shall be dreadfully afraid of him.” 

Mrs. Stanhope laughed indulgently, but called Ginia 
a silly, silly child.” Olga never ventured into the 
realms of badinage or repartee with the mistress of 
Stanhope. Perhaps it would not have been so well 
received. She felt quite sure she had no inclination to 
experiment that way. 

Olga, child, bring me the hand glass off my bureau. 
I am afraid something is wrong with my eyes. I have 
read Eustis’s letter three times and a round floating 
spot^seems to follow the lines.” 

Olga looked at her with keen anxiety. There was 


104 


WITHOUT BLEMISH, 


undeniably a filmy look in Mrs. Stanhope’s usually 
clear gray eyes ! She was soon back with the hand 
mirror. Perhaps, after all, the film came from unshed 
tears of joy ! Perhaps the glass was a little ruse to 
relieve the mother’s pardonable anxiety on the score 
of her own looks. 

“ I’m sure he will think his mother’s face the hand- 
somest he ever saw. You could not change to him,” 
she said, with her slow sweet smile, as she held the 
glass in front of the faded face. 

“Nonsense, child! I never knew you flatter before. 
Don’t try your ’prentice hand on me.” 

The words were a trifle harsh, quite harsh enough 
to send Olga back to the table-cloth she was darning 
with a bright blush on her cheeks. There was a 
mighty capacity for loving infolded in that girlish 
breast that had as yet found no outlet, for while the 
difference made between herself and Virginia was so 
slight as to be impalpable to ordinary powers of obser- 
vation, Olga was quite sure that she had never 
gotten so close to Mrs. Stanhope’s heart as Virginia 
had. 

“ But then, Ginia is so pretty that her very sauci- 
ness is lovable,” Olga argued generously, “ and she only 
took me because the little thing fretted so to have me. 
After all, if Ginia had not loved me so, I never would 
have had this dear peaceful horne.” 

“ What do men want of votes, anyhow ? ” Virginia 


A RETURNED WANDERER. 


105 

asked presently, crossing her small white hands over the 
pile of crimson crochet work that was rapidly assuming 
the shape and size of a buggy afghan, destined for the 
use of the heir concerning whose coming every body at 
the Hall was more or less exercised. “ And what will 
he do with it, now that he has it ? ’’ 

The atmosphere which Ginia had breathed all her 
life was scarcely favorable to the growth of any vivid 
interest in the large questions of the day. 

“ What does he want of a vote ? To help get things 
into a worse snarl than ever, I suppose, child," Mrs. 
Stanhope says, finding jests easy and ready on this 
light-hearted morning, and giving an answer displaying 
a truer perception of political ethics than one would 
have expected from an advanced recluse of the unpoliti- 
cal sex. 

By-the-way, girls, there is a message about you in 
my son’s letter, that you may as well have the benefit 
of." She resumed her glasses, took up the letter, turned 
it about once or twice, took her glasses off, wiped them 
carefully, found the place and read : 

“ I hope the children of whom you have spoken so 
often, may have proved themselves real sources of 
comfort to you. I am quite prepared to take them into 
my affections, if they have served to brighten the 
lonely lot of my dear mother while she has been wait- 
ing for me to come home." 

“ That is kindly said," says Olga, starting the needle 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


io6 , 

she had held suspended in midair, as she listened, upon 
a fresh journey across a threadbare spot. 

While Ginia asked, with a click in her voice that 
sounded a trifle resentful: — 

“ Do you suppose he expects to find us two quite 
little girls? Why Olga is seventeen and I am but very 
little younger. Almost young ladies.” 

Mrs. Stanhope looked at the speaker with vague sur- 
prise stealing into her own face : 

“ To be sure,” she said, “ to be sure ! How time does 
fly ! Such a little while since I brought you home the 
merest mites of girls, and, here you are, as you say, 
almost young ladies.” 

It’s delightful to think so, too!” Ginia flung the 
bright afghan on the floor and kneeling on the hassock 
at Mrs. Stanhope’s feet, took the delicate withered 
hand of her benefactress between her own in a caressing 
fashion. 

“You’re not sorry you took us out of that dreadful 
asylum, are you. Aunty Stanhope? We haven’t been 
much of a bother to you, have we, Ollie and I ? ” 
Olga looked at the pretty tableau which Ginia with her 
sweet pleading up-turned face made, kneeling there 
clasping their friend’s hands in hers, with no envy, only 
a little heart-ache, because she had never yet come into 
such loving juxtaposition, nor ventured on the sweet 
familiarity that seemed to bring those two so much 
nearer together than she might ever hope to come. 


A RETURNED WANDERER. 107 

Mrs. Stanhope freed her right hand and placed it gently 
on the kneeling girl’s bright rippling hair : 

“No, child, no. I’ve never regretted taking you out 
of the asylum. I must say that you and Olga have both 
done me good. You have been good children, and I 
have never been quite the selfish recluse I was, since I 
brought you here. I think we have done each other 
good.” Her hand rested upon the girl’s head as in 
benediction. Esau’s wail swelled in the heart of the 
darker child, sitting there enduring her heart hunger 
with never a sign of its biting keenness. “ Hast thou 
but one blessing ! Bless me, even me, also.” 

Mrs. Stanhope turned toward her, as Ginia rose 
from the kneeling position she had assumed. 

“ Olga, child, do take these glasses and wash them with 
soap and water. Then if I can not see better, I shall 
be sure the trouble is in my eyes.” 

Olga took the glasses and disappeared with 
them. 

Ginia settled herself more comfortably on the has- 
sock and continued in that advisory fashion she was 
given to, and Mrs. Stanhope was indulgent toward. 

“There’s nothing in the world the matter with your 
eyes. Aunty Stanhope. You’ve been reading those hor- 
rid papers by lamp-light. You ought to let Olliedo it. 
Ollie reads beautifully.” 

“Yes ! I have been a little reckless. But no one can 
assist me. I want to have Eustis’s business in clear 


io8 WITHOUT BLEMISH. 

shape when he takes hold of it. Some of those law 
papers are not easily deciphered.” 

“Then let Ollie attend to it for you.” 

Virginia was quite in the habit of suggesting Olga’s 
name when any difficulty arose. She had yet, in her 
own experience, to meet with any obstacle that Olga 
could not successfully cope with. Her own reliance on 
her first friend did not decrease with time. She was 
loyally in love with her protector of other days and 
unselfishly proud of her. 

“ Don’t you think Ollie does read beautifully ? ” she 
asked persistently. 

“Yes, quite well. I am afraid you are letting her 
outstrip you, Ginia.” 

“ Let her ! why how could I prevent her if I wanted 
to ? She’s smarter and older and more in earnest and 
worth more than I am every way. Ollie’s just per- 
fect ! She’s worth a dozen such as I.” 

“ Nonsense ! Don’t let me ever hear you talk so fool- 
ishly again, Ginia. I am glad to see that Olga has 
made good use of the opportunities afforded her. A 
good plain education may prove invaluable to her 
some of these days.” 

Mrs. Stanhope’s tones were severe. She could not 
tell Ginia that she had looked for more from her than 
from Olga, because of the latter’s tainted extraction. 
She could not tell her that the possessor of pure Cau- 
casian blood should be the intellectual superior of one 


A RETURNED WANDERER. log 

less fortunate.” Indeed, she quite prided herself on 
the rigid performance of her impartial duty to both 
orphans. In all save musical instruction, against 
which Olga herself had protested on the score of lack 
of talent, the two girls had received the same instruc- 
tion at the hands of Miss Denton, who had solicited 
this increase to her very meager income. She had 
been a visiting governess to Stanhope Hall now for all 
the years that had elapsed since Ginia first discovered 
her toilsomely climbing the approach to the house in 
her rusty-topped buggy. Mrs. Stanhope looked for- 
ward definitely to the time when Olga would be thrown 
on her own resources, and purposely sought to fortify 
her for that hour by instilling into her a spirit of self- 
reliance, and by making her mistress of as mnch practi- 
cal information as could well be contained by one 
small head. She thought of all these things now, as 
she lay back against the cushions of her chair with 
closed eyes. Darting arrows of pain seemed to shoot 
through her eyeballs. For many nights past she had 
been poring over illegible papers, by the light of an 
unshaded kerosene lamp, and nature was avenging her- 
self. She pressed her hands over the hot aching balls. 
Ginia passed from the hassock to the back of the 
chair and laid a light cool hand over Mrs. Stanhope’s 
closed eyes. 

'' Ah ! that is pleasant ! The darkness is a relief.” 

Presently the girl said somewhat inconsequently : — 


I lO 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


“ Of course you are going to do something very special 
when Eus — your son — Mr. Eustis gets here. Some- 
thing like the English lords and ladies do when the 
heir comes of age. I heard Miss Denton tell you 
people would expect something neighborly of you, or 
they might overlook him. I wonder what Ollie and 
I ought to call him ! ” 

“ Mr. Stanhope, of course,” said Olga, coming back 
just then with the glasses and settling Ginia’s diffi- 
culty with her usual prompt decisiveness. “ Try them 
now, please,” to Mrs. Stanhope, ‘‘ they shine like 
crystal.” 

Mrs. Stanhope put them on, glanced eagerly around 
at the familiar objects, then sighed heavily as she 
said : “ I am seriously alarmed. The trouble must be 
in my eyes. My father lost his eye-sight very sud- 
denly,” she passed her hand quickly backward and for- 
ward across her eyes. 

Olga gave one startled look at her, then glided from 
window to window until she had reduced the glare to a 
pleasing obscurity. 

Please don’t go to imagining things,” she said 
timidly, “ indeed, indeed, you only need to rest your 
eyes. 

Ginia, still leaning over the back of the chair 
added placidly : — 

“Your eyes are lovely, if you only wouldn’t put 
them out of nights over musty papers. You must save 


A RETURNED WANDERER. 


Ill 


yourself for that great party you are going to give Mr. 
Eustis when he gets here. You will be so proud of 
him, I expect, that you will want the whole country- 
side to see him at once." 

Mrs. Stanhope fell into the trap set for her. 

I am afraid something of the sort will be expected 
from me, but I dread it. It was a nuisance to give a 
party in slave-times, and of course it was easy then by 
comparison with now. Every house in the neighborhood 
was expected to give one entertainment a year. Dear, 
dear, how things have changed since then." 

But Ginia’s special talent was in suggestion : — 

Why Ollie and Miss Denton and I can take all the 
bother off you, can’t we, Ollie? " 

“ By the way, Olga," Mrs. Stanhope said, would you 
mind riding over this afternoon and telling Miss Den- 
ton I should like to have her spend to-morrow with 
me? Now that you girls have holiday we see so little 
of her. Tell her I should like her to come early and 
stay late. I have much to talk with her about. You 
can tell her about my letter." 

“ I should love to walk over. It is so cool and 
pleasant in the woods. Is Ginia to go with me?" 

“ I believe," said Mrs. Stanhope, again pressing her 
hand to her closed eyes, I do not care to have you 
both go. I want Virginia to write some notes for me 
this afternoon." 

Olga took herself severely to task for the jealous 


I 12 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


pang that shot through her, at this preference of Ginia 
over herself as amanuensis, but none of her pique 
escaped through eye or voice, and when, a little while 
later, she plunged into the cool and fragrant depths of 
the woods that lay between Stanhope Hall and the 
plantation where Miss Denton had reigned as nominal 
mistress for many years, all bitterness passed out of her 
gentle soul and was forgotten. 

The “ cross-cut ” which she had chosen, by prefer- 
ence, over the hot and dusty public road where the 
ox-wagons toiled laboriously town-ward, high piled 
with cumbersome bales of cotton, or homeward, more 
lightly laden with plantation “ supplies ; ” where an 
occasional lazy mule bestridden by a sleepily indiffer- 
ent rider shuffled the dust up in little choking clouds ; 
was cool and fragrant and clean, and the birds in the 
branches overhead sang such tuneful fearless melodies, 
there, where there was none to make them afraid, that 
it was quite as if she were having a promenade concert 
all to herself. 

She took off her sun-bonnet and swinging it by its 
two long strings walked on blithely, in acute harmony 
with her pleasant surroundings. It was a trifle lonely, 
but she had never yet met any thing more alarming in 
those woods than a timid rabbit scudding before her 
approach with upraised tail and back laid ears, ora nim- 
ble frisky woodpecker who would attain a safe altitude 
above her in the thick branches, then saucily question 


A RETURNED WANDERER. 1 13 

her right of way with bright eyes, or a — at this point 
in her meditations Olga shied ! shied very much as a 
pony might have done under similar circumstances. 
There, seated on a fallen tree was a woman ! Olga 
was at a loss, at first, to determine what manner of 
woman it was who had invaded the privacy of what 
she had come to regard as her own exclusive property, 
because this pathway, that she so delighted in, was 
regarded as gloomy and lonely by the more mercurial 
Ginia, and no one else, unless the “ hands ” on the way 
to Sunday meeting, ever trespassed. No one, at least, 
before this Unknown had found it and apparently 
meant to enjoy it. 

Leaning back against the up-torn root of a fallen 
tree, the interloper had fallen into a sound sleep. 
Olga’s first Levitish impulse was to pass by as quickly 
and noiselessly as possible, on the other side, but the 
good Samaritan in her prevailed, and her second was to 
discover if this stranger was sick or in distress of any 
sort. 

She came nearer and shook the woman lightly by 
the arm, then, as the wayfarer opened her eyes and 
stared stupidly about, she asked : — 

“ Have you lost your way? What are you doing 
here in these woods all by yourself? Have you come 
from far? ” 

Olga’s last question was elicited by the fact that a 
flabby hand-bag fell to the ground as the woman rose 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


I14 

to a standing position and stretched her arms deliber- 
ately as she yawned audibly. 

“ I believe I did fall asleep," she said, bringing 
the words out at the end of her protracted yawn. 
“ No, I ain’t lost. It would be right hard to lose me 
any wheres about here. I ain’t been here though, for 
a long time. I’m powerful tired and jus’ held up fora 
little restin’ spell. I’m on my way to see a Miss Den- 
ton that used to live on the old Rodman place, just 
t’other side of them woods.’’ 

“ She lives there yet,’’ Olga said. 

“ Then I’m all right. I remembered this cross-cut 
and left the road to take it. Don’t seem like a 
twig even is changed since I walked here the last time. 
I got off a boat at town this mornin’,’’ she added ex- 
planatorily, as she stooped to recover the flabby hand- 
bag. 

She was dressed in black, with a shabby effort at 
gentility, principally displayed in the keeping of a 
very rusty crape veil drawn over her face, but the 
ungloved hand that was stretched out after the fallen 
bag, was coarse and large, and not that of a white 
woman ! 

She is a mulatto, looking for a place as house servant, 
was Olga’s mental decision ; then aloud 

“ I am on my way to see Miss Denton now. If you 
are not quite sure of your way, perhaps you would like 
to walk on with me ? ’’ 


A RETURNED WANDERER. 


115 

The girl’s voice took on that quiet tone of patronage 
that the Caucasian involuntarily assumes toward those 
of less pure extraction. This woman was, no doubt, 
much her senior in years, but she was evidently her 
inferior in every other respect. If the stranger noticed 
the faint flavor of hauteur she did not resent it. 

“ Much ’bliged to you. You seem to be a real sweet 
’commodatin’ young lady. I don’t much think I 
couldn’t find my way alone, for things do seem to 
change mighty slow about here, but as I’ve had just 
enough of my own company I’ll take you at your 
word.” 

‘‘Are you going to work for Miss Denton ?” asked 
Olga, by way of making talk as they moved on side by 
side. 

The woman laughed a trifle scornfully as she 
answered : 

“Maybe I am, an’ maybe I ain’t. One thing is sure. I 
ain’t a-goin’ to be knocked about the world like a stray 
dog no longer.” 

As Olga had no advice to give on this subject and 
was at a loss for any other to introduce, they lapsed 
into silence which lasted until they reached the yard 
gate on the Rodman place, and caught sight of Miss 
Denton’s genial face. 

“ Bless goodness, the old woman ain’t changed no 
more than the trees back yonder in the woods,” said 
the stranger, lifting the gate latch with the familiarity 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


1 16 

of long acquaintanceship, and leading the way up the 
walk. 

Olga followed in her wake quite satisfied that who- 
ever the stranger might be, she was in no need of 
patronage from herself. 


CHAPTER X. 


MISS DENTON RENEWS AN ACQUAINTANCE. 

M ISS DENTON, rocking, knitting, reading and U 
fanning simultaneously, in the big broad-armed 
splint-bottomed chair on her front gallery, conveyed an 
idea of very unseasonable activity on that hot after- 
noon ; but having nothing more important than her 
own comfort to exercise her mental ingenuity upon 
during the long summer holidays, she quite prided her- 
self upon an invention, which, to use her own expres- ^ 
sion, enabled her to combine business with pleasure, 
with highly gratifying results. 

By a sirqple mechanical contrivance on the back of 
her chair, she kept two huge palmetto fans in perpetual 
motion at ifhe small expenditure of enough vital force 
to keep the big rocker, also, in perpetual motion. Thus, 
with her open book secured upon one of the broad flat 
arms of the chair she was enabled to pursue that laby- 
rinth in red wool, which had its beginning in remote 
by-gone ages and whose completion no one ever looked 
forward to beholding. She gave the impression of an 
animated bit of mechanism herself, as Olga and the 
shabby woman advanced toward her through the 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


1 18 

avenue of crape myrtles that pointed the straight and 
narrow way from Miss Denton’s front gate to her front 
steps. As the rocker became conscious of her visitors, 
her shining needles executed a surprised staccato 
movement, and then fell upon the mystery in wool that 
lay in a hot and fiery heap on her lap. She was always 
glad to see Olga, always had a smile for her, but the 
smile with which she greeted her this time was short- 
lived and faded entirely as she turned a coldly scruti- 
nizing glance on the girl’s companion. 

“Did you want to see me?” she asked, decidedly 
ungraciously. 

“Yes’m, but I ain’t in no sort of a hurry. Young 
missey is, I reckon. She was saying as we come along 
that she must hurry or it would be gettin’ dark in the 
woods before she got home. I can wait. Just take 
your own time, both of you.” 

The words and tones were evidently meant to be 
propitiatory. The shabby _^ranger seated herself 
huf^bly enough on the top-stepi^and calmly divesting 
herself of her hat and veil revealed a worn thin face, 
dark, sallow and sensual, only relieved from positive 
ugliness by a pair of lustrous dark eyes. 

Miss Denton’s ungraciousness did not diminish as the 
removal of her visitor’s veil confirmed her suspicion 
that she was one of those “ half-and-halfs,” as she scorn- 
fully called all mulattoes, who “weren’t any one thing 
in particular and belonged nowhere especially.” She 


MISS DENTOlsr RENE WS AN A CQ UAINTANCE. 1 1 9 

drew Olga inside the house to hear her message, leav- 
ing her self-invited visitor to bide her time in patience. 

“ What I especially wanted to talk with you about,” 
said Olga, after her message was delivered, and her 
soft eyes were full of troubled anxiety, “ was Mrs. 
Stanhope’s eyes. I can’t tell you how uneasy I am 
^ about them. I think something must have been 
wrong with them longer than she has acknowledged 
even to herself, but now, oh ! I can see that something 
is terribly wrong. What if she should go blind? ” 

Miss Denton did not “ pooh-pooh ” her fears as Olga 
had hoped she would. On the contrary, she said very 
gravely, “ You make me quite uneasy. Blindness runs 
in the Eustis family. You know she was a Miss 
Eustis. Her father lost his eyesight very suddenly, I 
am told, from reading a newspaper in’ a skiff with the 
glare of the sunshine and water dazzling him, and she 
has told me of a sister who lost her eyesight com- 
pletely. I shall certainly be over to-morrow. Now, 
dear, I want you to hurry home. It will be getting 
quite dark in the woods. By the way, who is that 
woman you brought with you ? ” 

“ I can’t say that I did exactly bring her,” 'said Olga, 
looking through the window to where the woman was 
gazing placidly about her, more with the air of one 
renewing acquaintance than as a stranger investigating 
unfamiliar surroundings. Then Olga told how they 
had come together, asking in conclusion : 


120 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


“ Is she a white woman badly sun-burned ? I don’t 
think I ever saw just such a color.” 

“ On the contrary, she is a colored woman badly 
bleached. Sickly, I suppose. Wants to work about 
the house. They all do. She’ll tell me presently how 
many ladies she has sewed for, and will try to convince 
me that my life will be valueless without her assistance 
in future. I know them. She looks sickly, poor 
wretch.” 

And untidy too,” says Olga, looking with disap- 
proval at the frowzy woman on the steps. Then she 
kissed Miss Denton with the rapturous effusion that girls 
always instill into those flavorless caresses, and went 
away leaving the little old lady at liberty to catechise 
the stranger within her gates with as much asperity as 
she chose to exercise. 

Miss Denton resumed her seat in the big rocker, 
found the place in her book, crossed her needles in 
first position, and, having set the complicated 
machinery of rockers, feet, fan and needles once more 
in brisk motion, said crisply : 

“Well! what can I do for you? You are looking 
for work, I suppose. You don’t look very strong.” 

The words were not particularly kind, but perhaps 
this was the nearest approach to sympathy the shabby 
woman had received for a long time. Her large eyes grew 
suddenly wet with unshed tears, and she clasped her 
ungloved hands nervously together, as she answered : 


MISS DENTON RENE WS AN ACQ UAINTANCE. 1 2 1 

“ No’m, I ain’t none too strong, and Fve had a 
mighty hard time of it since I seen you last time. 
You don’t remember me, do you, Miss Denton? ” 

Miss Denton peered at her scrutinizingly over her 
glasses for a second, then answered indifferently : 

“ No ! I can’t say that I do. What is your name ?” 

Missis Banks ! Missis Rosa Banks.” 

The shabby woman laid decided emphasis on the 
prefix “ Mrs.,” probably as a sort of guarantee of 
respectability, or perhaps because the possession of a sur- 
name with a prefix to it was still a novelty to her race. 

“ Mrs. Banks ! ” Miss Denton repeated with a little 
ironical snap in her voice, “ never heard that name in 
my life. Of course I can’t recall what I never knew.” 

“ Oh ! that weren’t my entitle when I lived in these 
parts. You used to know me as Rose.” 

“ Rose what ? ” 

“ Rose nothin’. I was jus’ Rose, and wasn’t nothin’ 
else. I cooked and cleaned house for you, don’t you 
remember, for tw'o months, just about the time the 
Yankees took Natchez? Don’t you remember Rose, 
Miss Denton? Nothin’ ’t all about her?” 

Miss Denton looked again at the worn face before 
her. It was lighted up now with an eager demand for 
recognition. She said slowly, as if searching the 
chambers of memory for missing links : 

“ I do remember once — during the war — getting up 
one morning and finding myself without a servant — 


122 


WITHOUT BLEMISH 


and — going down to the corral — under the hill — where 
all the freed people who ran to the Yankees were 
herded — to see if I could hire a girl.” 

“Yes’m,” Mrs. Banks flung in encouragingly. 

“ And,” Miss Denton resumed slowly, as if groping 
her way toward the light, “ I do remember, that a 
young girl hired to me very willingly, and made me a 
very good servant while she staid, which wasn’t for 
very long.” 

‘‘No’m! I was a mighty fool in my young days,” 
says Mrs. Banks with humble self-abasement. 

“ And I think she called herself Rose, but — she — 
was quite ” 

“ Purty, you was goin’ to say. I’m that ve’y same 
Rose, Miss Denton, but I’ve had a heap uv hard 
knocks sence then. Yes’m, I is that. I’ve seen a 
sight o’ trouble.” 

“ But you call yourself Mrs. Banks now ^ ” 

• “Yes’m, after I went away from you I married a 
good fur nothin’ triflin’ yaller barber called Banks, an’ 
he drug an’ he drug me roun’ from post to pillar, till I 
los’ my health an’ my pluck an’ all the go that ever 
was in me. He sorter settled down finally in Cleve- 
land, and thar’s where he died, which was the only 
good turn he ever done me.” 

“But — ” Miss Denton hesitated. True, the woman 
before her had once been a slave, nothing but a chattel. 
Had never been reared to value the moralities or even 


MISS DENTON RENE WS AN A CQ UAINTANCE. 123 

the decencies of life. But perhaps with freedom had 
come some sort of respect for the observances of virtue, 
and, therefore, the question that trembled on her lips 
might give offense. Nevertheless, as she had her own 
private reasons for diving to the bottom of this 
woman’s history, and very powerful reasons they were, 
she finally said : 

But — Rose — when you were with me you were 
about to — What has become of your child ? ” 

The complicated machinery of which Miss Denton 
was an integral portion came to a dead stop as she 
waited for the woman’s answer. 

“ Poor little brat, she’s better off than I ever could 
’a’ made her.” 

“ Dead ? ” the lady asked. 

“ No’m. At least not as I knows on, but Banks, he 
was that mean and hateful to her, always abusin’ of 
her and callin’ her my ^ white brat,’ that I ups one day 
and takes her to a orphan ’sylum in Cleveland, whar 
one color is as good as another, an’ I jus’ slips her 
inside the door yard, when there weren’t nobody 
a-lookin’, an’ left her there a cryin’ for her mammy. 
But her mammy done it for her good, and I ain’t 
never been sorry for it, no, not oncet. I done the 
best I knowed how.” 

“ And you’ve never seen her since ? ” 

“ Never sence that blessed minute when I peeped from 
behind a tree box on t’other side of the street and saw 


124 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


some chillun standin’ roun’ my poor little girl. And then 
I went back and told Banks he might take his spite out 
on me, but thank God he couldn’t peck at my child no 
more. She wur beyond harm’s reach and I could stand 
all the rest.” 

Her eyes were hard and dry as she told this story of 
domestic infelicity quite as if it concerned any body 
rather than herself. 

How long ago was that ? ” asks the catechist in the 
chair. 

That ! let me see ! That mus’ ’a’ ben about twelve 
years ago. My gal, if she’s livin’ now, mus’ be about 
seventeen year old.” 

And you staid in Cleveland all that time without 
trying to see her?” 

^‘Oh! no’m, I didn’t do no such of a thing. I ain’t 
that hard. Banks, he died, or leastways he was 
drowndid one Sunday, when he was on a spree, just 
about two months after I put my chile at the ’sylum, 
and then I thinks, now I’ll have my child back in peace. 
Then I thinks, no, I won’t neither. They’ll teach her 
something worth knowin’ where you’ve put her and 
she’ll have a better chance than you can ever give her, 
so you better just let her alone. An’ as I knowed it 
would be more than I could hold myself to, if I staid 
near her, where my heart might get the better of my 
head and make me claim her, I jist packed up my duds 
an’ left. And so I’ve just ben a-driftin’ and driftin’, 


M/SS DENTON RENEWS AN ACQUAINTANCE. 125 

changin’ places and changin’ mistresses, fust for one 
cause and then for another, till I found myself back at 
Natchez a chamber-maiding on a steamboat; an’ when 
the boat touched at the wharf, old times come over me 
too strong an’ I ’lowed I’d make one more change. I’d 
hire out to you, ef you was alive yet an’ would take 
me, (I remember you was a good mistress. Miss Den- 
ton), and so soon as I can save up a little money. I’ll 
light out oncet more and get across the river down to 
whar I left my poor ole mammy a-grievin’ for me. 
Maybe, she’s dead and gone long ago. I hope she ain’t. 
I’d like to stop with her the balance of my days. I’m 
gettin’ feeble an’ no ’count : the time’s cornin’ when 
nobody won’t hire me, ’cause they won’t see their 
money’s worth in me. But mammy ’ll be glad to see 
me. She’ll take me in ef she’s above groun’. I can 
count on mammy. I never knowed until I had to give 
my own girl up what I’d made my poor ole mammy 
suffer, but she’ll forgive me. I know my girl couldn’t 
come to me asking furgiveness and not getting it. I 
can count on mammy.” 

^‘Who is your mother. Rose, and where does she 
live ? ” 

“ Ef she’s livin’ at all she’s down on the old place 
over in the Louisiany bottoms. Down at Bendemma. 
Her name’s Dora.” 

“Mr. Trowbridge’s old housekeeper.^” 

“ She used to be.” 


126 


WITHOUT BLEMISH 


“ And you knew Mr. Trowbridge ? ” 

“ I used to belong to him,” said the woman in the 
weary monotone in which all her utterances were con- 
veyed. 

Miss Denton leaned back in silence. 

Is any thing happened to Mr. Waring?” the 
woman on the steps asked presently, with only a modi- 
cum of interest in her voice. A dull curiosity stirred 
her dulled senses, nothing more. 

“No,” said Miss Denton, very slowly, “at least not 
lately.” Then the big rocker was put slowly in motion 
again. The big fans swayed with it, but the book was 
closed and the needles were idle. Presently the woman 
in the chair motioned to the woman on the steps to 
come nearer. 

Rose obeyed the gesture. Miss Denton looked up 
at her pleadingly. 

“ Rose ! will you tell me the name of your child’s 
father? I do not ask from idle curiosity. Will you 
tell me ? ” 

“No’m. I’ll never do that. There ain’t no use askin’.” 

“But your child? For her sake? For — for every 
body’s sake ! ” 

“ She’s safe. She’s where it won’t be counted ag’inst 
her that she didn’t have the choosin’ of her own 
mammy.” 

“ Do you feel sure that you will never want to reclaim 
her?” 


MISS DENTON RENE WS AN ACQ UAINTANCE. 1 2 7 

“ Oh ! no'm, I can’t say that. I can’t say I’ll never 
want her back. But I can say, that though I’ve wanted 
her back many and many a time already so bad that it 
seemed like my heart would break if I couldn’t put my 
arms roun’ the sweet thing just for oncet, if she was 
standin’ before me now, looking well and happy and 
purty, (fur ef she’s growed up at all she’s bound to ’a’ 
growed up purty), I wouldn’t let on I was her mammy, 
an’ sp’ile her chances of gettin’ on in the work, not if it 
killed me to keep silent ! Indeed, ma’am, I wouldn’t. But 
I ain’t likely to be tempted in no such fashion sence 
I’ve put so many miles betwix’ us. It’s hard lines 
though. Miss Denton, mighty hard. But ef I could go 
back to my ole mammy with a little money in my 
pocket, her and me’ll weather it through together. If 
mammy’s livin’ yet, she’ll make me welcome. Mammys 
ain’t like no other sort of folks, you know, they can’t 
forgit, and stop carin’ fur their own. You’ll give me a 
chance to earn the money, won’t you, miss?” 

Miss Denton rocked in a meditative, halting fashion 
for a few more silent moments. The sun had long 
since sunk behind the crape myrtles, and the gloom of 
early night-fall was shutting the house in from the world 
outside the myrtles. The lowing of the cows as they 
defiled past the gate, going back to pasture after giving 
their all, impartially to calf and piggin, fell pleasantly 
on the quiet air. The last plowman on the last mule 
had passed out of sight with a whistled tune and clank- 


128 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


ing trace-chains ; the out-look was lonely and somber. 
The air was full of low flying bull-bats darting in every 
direction in pursuit of insects ; the road was already 
wrapped in the shadows of night. 

The woman who had “drifted and drifted ” cause- 
lessly and aimlessly, until she had almost drifted round 
the eddy to her starting point in life, stood there docile 
and patient, waiting for the decision that should give 
her another temporary home or send her adrift once 
more, friendless and forlorn. Even her anxieties par- 
took of a stolid patience. 

“Rose,” said Miss Denton finally, in a tone of decis- 
ion, “ if you think you will be willing to be guided by 
me in all things, all things mind you, I would be willing 
to give you a trial, so that you may earn the money to 
take you home. You know I never was a hard 
employer, but I must have obedience from those I 
employ.” 

“ I don’t think you an’ me is like to fall out. Miss 
Denton. I’m that tired of knockin’ about the worl’ 
that seems like I’d be glad to stay jus’ for the shelter 
of your roof an’ a kind word. But I don’t want to 
pester you when I gets too sick to work. Then I mus’ 
try to find mammy. She’ll forget (if she’s alive an’ 
’bove groun’ she will), how I run away with the boys an’ 
left her and daddy all alone ; she’ll forget how I used 
to pester the life out of her with my sassy no ’count 
ways ; she’ll jus’ remember it’s Rosetta come back and 


MISS DENTON RENE WS AN A CQ UAINTANCE. 1 2 9 

she’ll make it easy for me ’till the end comes. Oh ! I 
can 'pend on mammy.” 

And so she staid joyfully and unconditionally. 

Miss Denton dismissed her to the kitchen for rest 
and refreshment, and soon after took herself and her 
machinery in-doors from the night dews and the low 
flying bats, which no amount of familiar intercourse 
with, could render less obnoxious. 

.That night, as she stood meditatively before her 
looking glass abstractedly pinning the gray wisp of 
hair on either temple into a compact little ball, thinking 
abstractedly of this sudden addition to her domestic 
cabinet, she settled the matter with her conscience by 
declaring it was the only safe thing to do : 

“ There are tremendous possibilities of woe to others 
locked up in that ignorant breast, and it is better to 
have her in rny sight than any where else.” 


CHAPTER XI. 


THE BLOW DESCENDS. 

M rs. stanhope sat in darkness I Not that benef- 
icent absence of light that comes with the 
soothing refreshment of shade after garish sunlight ! 
Not the darkness of night, the somber-liveried herald 
of sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care ! Not 
a darkness that simply shut out from her the old Hall 
with its grassy terraces and its pink and white azaleas, 
together with the pitying glances that could dwell now 
upon her stricken face without fear of reproach or 
detection ! Not a darkness that carried its own anti- 
dote in the sure promise of returning light ! But in a 
darkness that had fallen suddenly, terribly, finally upon 
her with an awful permanence. Fallen when the sun 
was shining its brightest and all nature wearing her 
most radiant smiles for the home-coming of the heir ! 
Fallen upon her like a pall, wrapping body and soul 
about in a gloom that was as hopeless as it was pro- 
found. All her wail was for Eustis ! As for herself 
she had so long cultivated the Spartan virtues of forti- 
tude and endurance that no earthly ill had power now 
to extract one selfish moan from her. 


THE BLOW DESCENDS. 


But Eustis ! Her boy ! To what was he coming home ? 
How could he endure this blind companionship, 
this unseeing intercourse ? What meaning would 
home hold for him ? It was easy enough to impose on 
the imperious mistress of Stanhope Hall in those first 
days of her helplessness, before the sense of hearing 
had been drilled to do double duty. But she did not 
know that she was never alone. It was Olga’s self- 
appointed task to hover noiselessly about her, removing 
every impediment from her path to spare her as much 
as possible of the keen mortification she felt over her 
own awkwardness in getting about the old familiar 
rooms. The rooms were darkened unnecessarily now, 
for it had been weeks since the physicians had declared 
Mrs. Stanhope’s case of blindness a hopeless one, and 
she had taken up the burden that had been borne by 
more than one of her family before with pathetic dig- 
nity. Eustis had been written to ! Written to by 
the doctor who had been very explicit on the point of the 
permanence of his mother’s blindness. So he was not 
coming home unprepared. This was the day on which 
he was expected ! 

Olga stood by the library window with a fast beating 
heart, looking down the road by which he must 
approach. She was almost afraid to breathe comfor- 
tably lest she should be. ordered out of the beloved 
presence. 

Mrs. Stanhope sighed heavily, and passed her hand 


132 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


over the motionless lids of her eyes with the impatient 
gesture now so pathetically familiar to them all. “ If 
Eustis takes it rebelliously it will kill me,” she cried 
aloud in her agony, then burst into sobs so passionate 
and unrestrained that Olga wept for sympathy. It 
would be treachery to conceal her presence any longer ; 
dropping on her knees by the blind woman’s side she 
dared for the first time in all these years, to clasp caress- 
ing arms about Mrs. Stanhope’s waist, as she said. 
Dear Mrs. Stanhope ! dear more than mother, do 
not fear but that you will be dearer than ever to him. 
Do him justice ! If any affliction had overtaken him, 
would you love him less or more?” 

“ Hush, child! You mean well, but you talk ignorantly. 
Eustis is young and keenly alive to all the brightest 
possibilities of life. Tumultuous rebellion flows in 
his every vein. He is a man — all men rebel at con- 
finement. He is a Stanhope — they all adore physical 
perfection ! An infirmity is to them a disgrace — an 
affliction, a crime. Eustis’s sense of duty may keep 
him by my side for a little while, but it can not last, 
it can not last, child.” She laid her hand heavily on the 
kneeling girl’s shoulder. “ If you really feel grateful to 
me for the past, show it now ! Be all that you can be 
to the house Eustis is to live in. See that personal dis- 
comfort and disorder in his home do not disgust him 
and hasten the inevitable hour of his leaving me. I 
can trust you to do this, Olga, can I not ? ” 


THE BLOW DESCENDS. 


133 


Indeed, indeed you can ! It makes me so happy 
to have you think of me as a helper in anything.” 

“ Ginia is lively and amusing and her music may 
give my son pleasure in the dull long evenings. She 
too must help to make his darkened home bearable. 
My poor boy, what a home-coming?” 

Olga did not fail to recognize that here too the line 
was sharply drawn between Ginia and herself. It was 
an impalpable putting of herself on a lower plane 
always, always ! 

I shall go to my room and lie down,” Mrs. Stanhope 
continued. “ Perhaps if I could rest, I could meet my 
poor boy more calmly. Tell him where to find me, 
child. No, don’t come with me. Don’t you suppose I 
know the way to the room I’ve slept in for forty years? ” 
There was a ring of impatient misery in the blind 
woman’s voice, as she turned from Olga’s hand, that 
had touched her sleeve gently, and walked slowly from 
the room. 

Even as she spoke, the carriage that had been sent 
into town to meet Eustis was toiling up the hill that 
hid the old Hall from the public road and from the 
eyes of the young man, who leaned forward from the 
back seat, eagerly renewing acquaintance with the 
old familiar landscape. 

“ Squires, I believe I would rather walk through the 
grounds,” he said, calling a halt and opening the car- 
riage door for himself ; he turned his back upon the 


134 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


vehicle and started forward with the long swinging 
stride of an accomplished pedestrian. He struck into 
a bridle-path that he had been familiar with from his 
earliest childhood and the carriage drove rapidly for- 
ward by the road. 

Once within the shelter of the trees where he and the 
denizens of the woods used to be on such intimate terms 
of enmity, Eustis’s stride subsided into a slow walk : it 
was as if he went forward reluctantly to meet the 
shadows that waited for him in the old house. He had 
looked forward to this home-coming with all the exub- 
erant anticipation of a nature prone to extract the latent 
sweetness from every passing opportunity. He had 
taken boyish pleasure in anticipating his mother’s sat- 
isfaction in the erect military carriage that had super- 
seded the indolent slouch of his early youth. He had 
plotted and planned more than half a dozen grotesque 
disguises in which he purposed presenting himself 
before her, to test the boasted insight of mother-love. 
And now he was come home to gloom and bereavement, 
with the imperative demand laid upon him that he 
should be “ calm and cheerful ” in her presence. This 
last Stanhope of the name was phenomenal in no 
respect. He was well grown and well developed, with 
a fine head set firmly on broad shoulders, with clear, 
sensible eyes and a square jaw that promised well for 
him should he ever get thoroughly in earnest about 
any thing. 


THE BLOW DESCENDS. 


I3S 

It seemed a cruel and inscrutable dispensation that 
shut his mother away from him, just as he had hoped 
to compensate her in some measure for all the sacri- 
fices she had made for his sake, all the loneliness she 
had endured so patiently! It had been easy enough 
for him to write a comforting letter to her, but here he 
was about to be brought face to face with the awful 
reality and he was not at all sure of his own strength. 

This is why he preferred sauntering slowly toward 
the house rather than be driven into his mother’s 
presence unprepared. This is why, seating himself on 
a grass-grown stump, in the shadow of the trees, he 
drew his hat far down over his face and gave himself 
up entirely to his fierce grief for the first and last time 
since it had come upon him. It seemed to him he had 
been sitting there long enough to live over again in 
memory all of his old life, with its lights and shadows, 
its pains and pleasures all reflected in the same never- 
fading light of mother-love, when a soft rustling near 
him made him raise his head and push back from his 
eyes the hat he had drawn low down over his moody 
brows. It was scarcely louder than the rustling 
scamper of a brown rabbit, which, he doubted not 
it was until, as he raised his bowed head, a pretty bit 
of coloring caught his artist eye. There, flushing and 
paling before him, her hands clasped together and her 
soft eyes scanning him with a womanly pity beyond 
her years, stood Olga, making with her dark blue dress 


136 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


and white apron, her straw hat with its little red 
pom-pon, her sweet, serious face and earnest eyes a 
pleasing surprise in the shadowy woods : 

“ And this is ? ” he asked, rising courteously and 

looking down upon her from what seemed to her a 
tremendous height. 

“ Olga, one of the orphans.” 

“Ah! yes.” 

Her voice trembled perceptibly as she went on hur- 
riedly. “ I came to meet you on purpose, Mr. Stan- 
hope. It is all very dreadful, oh ! so absolutely dread- 
ful, but please try to make her think you don’t mind ; 
at least, not very much. I have heard her say, poor 
dear, and she said it with such awful sobs, that ‘ if you 
took it rebelliously it would kill her,’ and I thought, 
maybe, if you knew just how she felt beforehand it 
might help you to act for the best. That is why I 
came to meet you.” 

“ It was well thought of, little Olga.” 

Olga’s cheeks flushed redly under the broad brim of 
her hat. She had yet something to say. She could 
dare much for those she loved. 

“And, perhaps, if you would go right straight to 
her, instead of trying to prepare yourself beforehand, 
it would come easier. I think there are some things 
we can not prepare for, don’t you, sir? ” 

“ Why what a wise little counselor it is ! ” said 
Eustis, looking down at her sideways, scarcely knowing 


THE BLOW DESCENDS. 


137 


whether to be amused or astonished at the grave de- 
cision of manner displayed by this mere slip of a girl. 
She quietly placed herself at his side as they moved on 
toward the house and said, with a shy upward 
glance : 

“ Thank you for letting me say these things.’’ Then 
with sudden inconsequence, “You are taller than we 
expected you to be,” she said, measuring him swiftly 
with an eye that took in the low broad-brimmed hat 
with its broad black band, the short-cropped hair, that 
left a section of sun-burned neck bare between it and 
the tall shirt-collar, and dropped finally on a pair of 
well polished shoes. 

“ Who are ‘ we ’ ? ” Eustis asked, smiling into her up- 
turned face. 

“Virginia and I. We have talked about you a great 
deal, and drawn a great many pictures of you to amuse 
ourselves,” she answered, with a matter-of-fact sim- 
plicity that precluded all idea of coquetry or boldness. 

“And where is Virginia now?” 

“ I left her putting flowers into the vases in your 
room. You will like Virginia, she is so bright and 
pretty, and plays very nicely. Mrs. Stanhope says you 
love music very much.” 

“ And how about your music ? ” 

“ I don’t play at all. I had no talent. Virginia has 
a great deal. Does the place look very natural to you, 
Mr. Stanhope?” 


138 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


Thus, perhaps designedly, Olga talked steadily on, 
until they stood together before his mother s closed 
door. She faced him there with her hand upon the 
knob. Tears stood in her eyes. 

Please be brave,” she said, “ for her dear sake.” 

“ Trust me, child ! ” He laid his hand on her head 
for a second, and then passed by her into -the darkened 
presence of his mother, who heard his foot-fall, and 
stood with eager arms outstretched toward him ! 
Statuesque in her beauty ! Sublime in her resignation ! 

And Eustis, gathering her close in his embrace, spoke 
brave cheerful words to her, while she passed her 
trembling hands over every feature of his face, learning 
to live by faith rather than by sight. 

Which is the beginning of wisdom. 


CHAPTER XII. 


DISCORDANT NOTES. 

H aving done all that she could to guard against 
any disturbing display of emotion on Eustis’s part 
by forewarning him of probable consequences, Olga 
breathed a sigh of relief as she closed the door behind 
him, hung her hat on the rack in the hall, and went to 
find Ginia to discuss the event of the day ! The coming 
of Eustis! 

They had both felt a full and natural share of curi- 
osity concerning this stranger, who was henceforth to 
be a portion of their daily experience, and she was 
anxious to give Ginia the benefit of her own first 
impressions. She found her in the room they 
shared in common. At the moment of Olga’s entrance 
the younger girl was industriously employed dusting 
and arranging the books on the center table. She was 
dressed with rather unusual elaborateness, for Ginia 
seldom wasted time adorning her person unless there 
was a distinct understanding that some one besides 
Mrs. Stanhope and Olga were to be impressed by it. 
There was a decided flush on her round cheeks, and a 


140 


WITHOUT BLEMISH, 


decided pout on her full red lips, and a decided sugges- 
tion of huffiness generally about Virginia, as she 
industriously dusted and banged the books back in 
their places, in a frenzy of very unusual zeal in the 
cause of neatness and order. 

“ He has come, Ginia ! ” said Olga, closing the door 
behind her with that regard for noiselessness that was 
entirely habitual with her. 

Virginia stopped dusting the magenta and gold Ten- 
nyson in her hand, to ask with a superfluous show of 
indifference : 

“ Who has come ? ” 

“ Why, Mr. Stanhope, of course.” 

“ Oh ! ” 

Ginia completed the dusting of Tennyson, and laid 
him on a pile of his confreres, with due regard to 
artistic selection of a dun-colored neighborhood, to 
subdue his gold and magenta brilliance. 

“And I have seen him,” Olga adds, with vivid 
interest in the subject and in her voice., 

“Oh!” said Ginia again. But monosyllables were 
not her forte, and presently she burst out with, “ I 
knew that some time ago. I must say it looked a little 
queer to me. I hope it did not to him.” 

“ Queer ! What looked queer ? ” Olga asked, fasten- 
ing her surprised eyes on Ginia’s flushed face. 

“ Oh ! nothing! Only I know if I had gone to meet 
a strange young gentleman on purpose to walk home 


DISCORDANT NOTES. 


141 

with him, no one would have been quicker than you 
to call me a ‘giddy creature.’ I only hope Mr. Stan- 
hope did not call you a giddy creature to himself.” 

Olga gasped ! Very much as she might have done if 
some one had unexpectedly dashed a tumbler of cold 
water in her face. Then she sat down rather violently. 

“ Ginia ! ” 

“ Olga ! ” 

There was a world of indignant protest in the one 
voice, and of spiteful mockery in the other. 

“ How dare you speak so about my going to meet 
Mr. Stanhope ? I only went — I only meant — ” She 
suddenly stopped, surprised to find herself on the verge 
of apology to Virginia, for having done what she 
thought it well to do for their benefactress’ sake. 

“ I only thought — I only meant,” says Ginia with a 
clever reproduction of Olga’s intonation, “ to say that 
it was really mean of you, that’s all. We might have 
gone together, but I suppose you preferred giving him 
the impression, that next to his mother no one cared 
half as much as you did about his home-coming.” 

Olga looked at the flushed and angiy^ face before her 
in quiet indignation. She had some skill and a good 
deal of experience touching these tempestuous out- 
bursts. The flood-gates of Ginia’s wrath once open 
she was neither choice nor backward in giving expres- 
sion to her feelings.. It would end presently in a shower 
of tears, followed by a lurid sunburst of hysterical 


142 


WITHOUT BLEMISH 


laughter, during which Ginia would retract all her 
ugly accusations, or transfer them to herself in propi- 
tiatory self-abasement, and an insecure armistice would 
be entered into between them. Olga had hoped much 
from time and improved mental conditions, but as yet 
Virginia was scarcely a degree less unreasonable and 
turbulent than in the old asylum days. 

Ginia,” she said presently, “ hush ! If there was 
any room for jealousy in this case, I* would say you 
were jealous now, for you are acting just as you always 
do, when you fancy Mrs. Stanhope or Miss Denton 
have shown me the least little preference over you. 
Now let me say something that may save you a world 
of trouble and mortification in the days to come. Don’t 
you know that Mrs. Stanhope’s son is no more to me 
or to you than the king of England would be? ” 

“ England hasn’t got any king,” said Ginia, reaching 
the stage of her inevitable and hysterical laughter. 

But Olga went on unsmilingly : “ Mrs. Stanhope was 
telling me only this morning what duties she expected 
each of us to perform in order to make things as pleas- 
ant and home-like as possible for Mr. Stanhope. You 
are to keep the flower vases full of fresh flowers, and are 
to give him music whenever he chooses to call for it. 
I am to see that his room and his clothes are kept in 
good order, and to prepare his favorite desserts for din- 
ner. We are to make up to him, as well as two igno- 
rant willing girls can, all that his home misses through 


DISCORDANT NOTES. 


J43 


her affliction. That is all. But don’t forget, Ginia, 
that we are nothing but charity girls. I don’t say it 
in any bitterness, for the charity has been full and 
sweet, but oh ! Ginia, don’t go and be foolish now. Per- 
haps we can repay in this way some little portion of 
our great debt of gratitude to his mother.” 

“ As far as I am concerned,” said Ginia cruelly, “ his 
mother coaxed me to come here. I had never thought 
of her doing it. I’m sure we’ve already paid her 
back.” 

Olga turned from her in complete discouragement. 
She was harder to touch than ever she had known 
before. Slowly unbraiding the shining .plaits that had 
been roughened and blown about in her walk, she pro- 
ceeded to smooth and braid again the long black hair, 
that was at once so soft and glossy but lacked the rip- 
pling beauty that marked Virginia’s hair. The two girls 
had many physical characteristics in common. The chief 
distinction lying in the color of their eyes and the 
expression of their mouths. Both had grown up much 
prettier than the promise of their early days. Impar- 
tial judges found more to admire in the serious sweet- 
ness and earnestness of Olga’s black eyes and firm 
thin lips, than in Virginia’s laughing, daring brown eyes 
and fuller, redder lips. 

In secret Mrs. Stanhope had puzzled over what 
seemed so extremely like a freak on the part of nature. 
By all known physiological laws, the close rippling hair, 


144 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


thick red lips and unclassic nose which went to make 
up the rather irregular prettiness of her favorite 
orphan, should have belonged to Olga. 

“ Is he handsome, Olga? "Ginia asked presently, in 
her usual nothing-has-happened voice. 

“ I don’t know.” 

“ Don’t know ! Oh, what a fib ! Didn’t you go to 
meet him, and walked a half mile home with him ? ” 

'‘Yes, I did to tell him what I had heard his 
mother say, and to beg him not to let her think it 
minded much.” 

“ And don’t know whether he is handsome or 
not ! ” 

" He is tall and strong looking, and has big kind 
eyes, and I like his looks, but I don’t know that you 
will.” 

“ And a mustache ? ” 

" No,” Olga laughed. “ His face is as smooth as 
yours or mine.” 

“ Oh ! I’m so sorry. I think a long mustache with a 
man always chewing it, is lovely.” Ginia softly patted 
the fluffy little rings of hair about her forehead and 
added briskly : 

“Mercy ! Half-past eleven and I always get a scold- 
ing if I don’t practice from eleven to twelve. I think 
I’ll go down. I can get a whole hour yet before I’m 
wanted.” * 

But Olga turned on her pleadingly: “I wouldn’t 


DISCORDANT NOTES. 


145 


open the piano to-day, Ginia, if I were you. It might 
jar on his feelings.” 

‘‘Jar on his fiddlesticks,” Ginia answered flippantly, 
and waltzing out of the room, she flung a backward 
glance of defiance at her little monitor. Presently there 
floated up to Olga, from the library, strains of music so 
soft and plaintive that however else they might affect 
the new comer, certainly were not calculated to jar 
on his feelings. 

She sat down upon the side of the low couch that 
had been her nightly place of rest for five peaceful, 
happy years and tried to calmly map out for herself 
the routine of the days that were to come. Poor lit- 
tle Olga, she had been plotting and planning for some 
sort of defined individual life, as far back as she could 
remember. She often really envied Virginia’s kitten- 
ish irresponsibility and indifference to the future, 
which carried her through the days in a truly script- 
ural repose concerning what the morrow should bring 
forth. But then Ginia had never been the recipient of 
certain vague intimations, that “ some of these days she 
would have herself alone to depen^d on.” She had 
even talked the matter over calmly with Miss Denton, 
who always encouraged her desire for ultimate independ- 
ence. Her eighteenth year was the one tacitly agreed 
upon by all, for the termination of her life of ease and 
bounty. Would this trouble of Mrs. Stanhope’s alter 
the future for her ? She did not want to seem ungrate- 


146 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


ful, but she could never take up the life of independent 
labor she proposed for herself, there, where she had 
been so much on an equality with them all. She was 
just wondering how much might happen before her 
next birth-day ! Perhaps she was disquieting herself 
in vain. So far from feeling any elation at the respon- 
sibility Mrs. Stanhope had laid upon her that morning, 
she felt anxious and nervous. How should she go 
about keeping his home “ bright and unchanged " for 
Eustis Stanhope, who would of course be perpetually 
contrasting her ways with the old ways ! She hoped he 
was not one of the capricious and exacting sort. If he 
should look very much dissatisfied with things, she was 
quite sure she would be frightened out of her senses, 
and there was no one to advise with. Olga had never 
forgotten the early lessons of her asylum life. In every 
perplexity she turned for council and comfort to Him 
who has said, ‘ ask and ye shall receive.’ Sinking to 
her knees she buried her head in the pillows of the 
lounge and softly asked for help and guidance from 
above. And while she kneeled there the soft strains 
of Home, Sweet Home, played with that heart-melting 
pathos Ginia knew so well how to infuse into her 
music, floated upward to her. 

I was going to stop,” Virginia said in a triumphant 
whisper, as Olga stood by the piano a little later on, 
but he told me to go on.” She nodded toward the 
front gallery, where, with his hands clasped behind 


DISCORDANT NOTES. 


147 


his back, his hat drawn far down in front, a cigar 
between his teeth, Eustis Stanhope was pacing rest- 
lessly to and fro. “ He says,” Ginia continued in an 
excited undertone, “ that he does not want his coming 
to interfere with any of our regular habits.” 

That was kind of him,” said Olga. 

The cessation of the music caused Eustis to glance 
toward them. 

“Ah! you are there, little Olga. Come out here, I 
have a great deal to ask you about my poor mother 
that I can not bring myself to ask her. I have left her 
to rest while I smoke. If you do not mind my cigar, 
we will walk and talk.” 

With shy reluctance Olga obeyed him, joining him 
on the veranda. The thorn of Virginia’s planting 
rankled in her tender flesh, but, as he resumed his cigar 
and walk with a rather curt demand that she -should 
tell him all about it, she entered fully into the history 
of the great trouble that infolded them all in its black 
shadow. 

Ginia’s hands fell among the keys again with dis- 
cordant vehemence, and, after running a few unmusical 
scales with hysterical rapidity, she rose, lowered the lid 
of the piano, and disappeared, to the secret relief of 
the young man on the gallery. 

Later on, Eustis found her seated on the hassock, 
at his mother’s feet, talking to her in a lively strain, 
and winning smiles for her reward, 


148 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


She discreetly withdrew at his entrance, and Mrs. 
Stanhope and her son fully discussed her investment 
in orphans. 

^^You seem to have a treasure in the child Olga,” 
said Eustis ; “ she is a grave, discreet, wise little thing, 
far beyond her years in point of character, I should 
imagine.” 

“ Olga is a good girl,” said Mrs. Stanhope, with no 
enthusiasm, there is no denying it.” 

(Quite, you know, as if she would have liked very 
much to deny it, conscience permitting.) 

But I can see,” Eustis added, that the child Vir- 
ginia has gotten a little nearer to you. You are quite sure 
she is in no danger of being spoiled for her prettiness ? ” 

“ Quite. Ginia is an artless, sweet girl, whom it 
would be hard to spoil. If I make a difference between 
the two, trust me it is not causelessly. But I would 
rather you talked to me about yourself.” 

And Eustis gratified her by being excessively egotis- 
tical for the next hour. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


EUSTIS’S ANALYSIS. 

I T is amazing with what facility human nature adapts 
itself to conditions, which, when first presented 
as a possibility of the future, it recoils from in pain, 
and pronounces utterly unbearable.” As if any thing 
in God’s providence could be utterly unbearable. But 
the blow descends ; and we rally from the first stunning 
force of it, and gather together our shattered ideals ; 
and reconstruct them to suit the altered conditions of 
our altered selves ; and fall into line once more, a trifle^ 
less buoyant of heart, less sure of foot, perhaps, and 
move on in the march of events, thinking tenderly of 
our former selves and former ideals as of some dear 
comrades who have dropped behind, leaving us to press 
forward with a semblance of the old zeal toward some 
new goal, when lo ! we are suddenly surprised into the 
consciousness that by divine leadership over unknown 
ways we have reached broader plains and more daz- 
zling heights than those which we outlined on the crude 
maps of our own imagination, when picturing to our- 
selves, in early youth, the manner of resting-place we 
should finally attain unto ! ['r 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


On the threshold of his manhood Eustis Stanhope was 
called upon to reconstruct the entire plan for his future. 
A plan which had been mapped out with that assured 
confidence in himself and serene blindness to the pos- 
sibility of any interference on the part of providence, 
which belongs exclusively to the insolent days of our 
youth. 

In his last school term, when the future of his free 
days loomed so big and so near, he had quite decided 
that a European tour, (accompanied by his handsome 
mother, whose solid mental attainments and keen 
powers of observation would make her the most 
delightful of traveling companions), would be the 
thing to do ; and he had looked forward with boyish 
fervor to thus compensating his mother for the long 
estrangement, which had necessarily borne more 
heavily on her than on him. Yet, here he was at 
home, and freed from his college bonds, with ample 
leisure and opportunity for realizing the old, old fact, 
that God rarely ever disposes as man proposes. 

Men of one-and-twenty, with the physical proportions 
of an athlete and the superabundant vitality of healthy 
young manhood, are not pre-eminently fitted for the 
post of comforter under affliction, especially when 
the affliction overshadows themselves so closely that 
their own need of comfort is urgent and lasting. 

That he loved his mother very devotedly, no one 
could doubt. That existence in the dreary old Hall 


EUSTIS'S ANALYSIS. 


with no other companionship than that of an afflicted 
woman and two crude young girls, who had been 
reared in almost monastic seclusion, would soon prove 
intolerable to him, no one could doubt either. That 
he was in a rebellious frame of mind against the 
Ordainer of his defeat, he was himself altogether con- 
scious of, and even extracted one flavorless crumb of 
comfort from the fact that his mother could only 
partially conceive of his sullen and bitter gloom. 

It is curious with what staid propriety the domestic 
machinery of a household may revolve, while within the 
soul of each of its inmates all is at dissonance ; sweet 
bells jangled ! In fact, life seemed set in a minor key 
to all at the Hall, excepting Virginia, who, Psyche-like, 
seemed only just to have discovered the possession of a 
soul. 

Olga had quietly settled into the position of house- 
keeper. Mrs. Stanhope felt as if a weight had been 
lifted off her conscience since she had found this prac- 
tical use for the orphan whom the fates, not herself, 
had placed on a lower platform than Virginia. Now, 
Olga need never leave her unless she herself so desired, 
which Mrs. Stanhope certainly hoped she would not, as 
she was so quiet and quick to comprehend, and already 
was such a comfort to her under her affliction. No! 
plainly there was no reason why they should not all go 
on for years, forever, maybe, just as they were. Poor 
child, she was so innocent of all complicity in the 


152 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


wickedness of her father, and the frailty of her mother, 
and so deserving, that it was a comfort to have matters 
adjust themselves nicely for her benefit ! Mrs. Stanhope 
quite rejoiced to think the child, so docile and quick and 
amiable, would be with her always. 

One morning when Olga, a trifle late, by reason of 
extra pantry duty, entered the library flushed and 
hurried, eager to begin the pleasantest task of her day, 
reading to Mrs. Stanhope for an hour, she found 
Virginia seated on the hassock at the old lady’s feet, 
with the open book upon her lap. Eustis was there, 
as he generally was during the reading. With his feet 
on the low window sill, his chair tilted far back, a cigar 
between his teeth, and his eyes fixed gloomily on the 
cape jasmine bush that grew close by the library 
windows, he had come to smoke his morning cigar 
there, as he did every day, in concession to his mother’s 
gentle insistance. 

“ You are there, Olga ? ” Mrs. Stanhope said, as 
Ginia stopped reading for explanations to be made. 

“ Yes’m.” 

“ You have so much to do, especially at this time of 
the morning, that it will be best for Virginia to take 
this duty off your hands,” said Mrs. Stanhope, planting 
her thorn courteously. 

“As you please, ma’am, of course,” said Olga, with a 
brave show of acquiescence, but with a fierce inward 
pang. Then she quietly slipped from the room, and a 


EUSTIS^S ANALYSIS. 


153 


little later on, pulled a big sun-bonnet well down over 
her eyes, as she started for the poultry yard, to hide 
the red and swollen lids. 

“You have changed your reader, I see,” said Eustis, 
bringing his chair down somewhat noisily, as Virginia 
closed the book, and, going out, left him alone with 
his mother. 

“Yes. Olga has so much else to do.” 

“ I imagine she did not complain of that.” 

“ No. She is very cheerful and willing. Olga never 
complains of any thing. She knows her place and is 
thoroughly self-respecting.” 

“ I think you have scarcely done yourself justice in 
making the exchange. She is a much better reader 
than Virginia.” 

“ Perhaps,” said Mrs. Stanhope, in that intensely cold 
voice with which she generally discouraged further 
argument. 

But, well remembered as that icy inflection was, and 
potent as it had been in Eustis’s more timid days, he 
placidly pursued the subject now, by asking : 

“ By-the-way, mother, by what conditions did you 
bind yourself when you took these orphans into your 
keeping ? ” 

“ I was to give them a home, all the advantages of a 
plain English education, and such training as might 
fit them to take care of themselves, until they were 
eighteen.” 


154 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


“And then?” 

“Then, if they so desire, they are at liberty to 
choose their own walk in life, and I shall not influence 
them to remain with me against their will.” 

“ Has it ever occurred to you that either one of them 
might ever care to take such a step ? ” 

“As leaving me?” 

“Yes.” 

“ Not Virginia, I hope ! ” 

“ No. Not Virginia. I do not think she ever suffers 
from a flicker of independence. But Olga ! That girl 
has no ordinary amount of character in her face.” 

“ Olga will be eighteen next June,” says Mrs. Stan- 
hope frigidly ; “ she will then be entirely at liberty to 
do as she pleases. I shall make no effort to detain her 
against her will.” 

“You do not seem to have taken her into your 
affections as closely as you have the other one ; and 
yet, to my seeing, she is the prettier, more intelligent, 
and better mannered of the two children. She cer- 
tainly has the better disposition.” 

“ Olga is ” 

Mrs. Stanhope stopped with a high flush on both 
cheeks. Every inclination of her heart pointed to 
a revelation ! Every instinct of honor forbade it ! 

“She is— what?” Eustis asked, surprised into 
curiosity by his mother’s evident effort not to enlighten 
him. 


1 


EaSTIS'S ANALYSIS. 


«55 


“Olga is — set apart,” said Mrs. Stanhope finally, with 
cruel vagueness that left its innocent object stamped 
with some undefined stain. 

“ Set apart ! ” 

Eustis repeated the words with a scoffing laugh. “ I 
presume that means the sins of the fathers, no marriage 
ring, etc., etc. I imagine whosoever takes children out 
of an orphan asylum runs just such risks.” 

“ There was no risk to run in my case,” said his 
mother haughtily. “ I was a lonely woman, desirous 
of doing a mite of good in the world. I believe I have 
done it in giving these two girls a happier childhood 
than they could possibly have had otherwise.” 

“ Perhaps ! ” 

“ Perhaps ! What do you mean, Eustis ? ” Mrs. 
Stanhope moved uneasily in her chair to face her son’s 
voice. 

I mean that childhood has a faculty for manu- ' 
facturing happiness for itself out of any surroundings 
short of absolute brutality. But I doubt if the girl 
Olga would not have been better left where she was. 

If she is indeed ^set apart,’ as you so mysteriously put 
it, the less she learned of the possibilities of the world 
for pleasure and happiness the better for her. Don’t 
you think so ? ” 

Mrs. Stanhope’s knitting-needles clicked impatiently 
for the space of an unbroken minute of silence, then : 

‘‘Why do you analyze Olga rather than Virginia? ” 


WITH0U2' BLEMISH, 


156 

“ Because,” said Eustis, with a short contemptuous 
laugh, prettiness, minus a soul, is soon resolved into 
its component parts of soft cheeks, red lips, bright eyes 
and white teeth. You see I have analyzed your 
favorite. But there is a capacity for suffering in the 
other one that makes one feel like being a little prema- 
ture in offering pity.” 

“ Decidedly premature, I should say. In fact your 
interest in Olga is altogether uncalled for. If she fails 
to attend to your comfort in the capacity of my house- 
keeper, you will please report her to me.” 

Eustis laughed lightly, and stooped to touch his 
mother’s cheek with his lips before leaving her. 

“ Thy speech bewrayeth thee ! Don’t be alarmed, 
mother. I’ve no notion of falling in love with either 
of your orphans, much less with the one who is 
avowedly ‘set apart.’ The woman who is to per- 
petuate the name of Stanhope, and to succeed your 
ladyship as mistress of the old Hall, must at least know 
who her own mother and father were.” 

And Virginia, moving swiftly away from the thin 
partition of lath and paper that had permitted every 
word of this conversation to fall into her eagerly 
strained ears, sped up stairs to her own room, where, 
locking herself in, she shed hot tears of passionate 
resentment. 

“ He says I have no soul ! ” she sobbed, demanding 
pity of herself for herself. “ And that I never have a 


EUSTIS'S ANALYSIS. 


157 


flicker of independence ; and I’m nothing but the 
* other one ’ to him. But, but,” here resentment was 
ingulfed in curiosity, “ mercy, don’t I wish I knew 
what she means by Olga being set apart ! And 
I’ll never rest until I find out. Never! never ! never ! ” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


MISS DENTON GIVES A DINNER. 

ITTLE Miss Denton was in what might be called 



I j a state of pleasurable fermentation on a certain day 
in the early autumn of the year we are in. Her persistent 
efforts to draw the Stanhopes a little out of their self- 
absorbing gloom, were about to receive some recogni- 
tion. The dear little old philanthropist had suddenly 
developed an amount of egotistical appreciation of her 
own importance, that found final expression in an invi- 
tation to a dining and in its acceptance. 

As the invitation was quaint and pathetic, and alto- 
gether unconventional, it is worth transcribing. This is 
how it read : “ My dear Eustis — I’ve known you, man 

and boy, ever since you were about ten years old, and, 
in all that time, I can not recall that I ever asked a favor 
at your hands. It is about time I was making amends 
for my shortcomings in that respect. To-morrow will 
mark the — (bless me, where’s the use of telling every 
body the exact date on which one entered this trouble- 
some world ?) — is my birthday ! I have a fancy not to 
spend it all by myself, indulging in the sage, or silly, 


MISS DENTON GIVES A DINNER. 159 

reflections that are in order on such occasions. That 
I was born without any consultation as to my indi- 
vidual preferences in the matter, is an uncontradictable 
fact, that I am still here and want you all to come over 
and brighten by your presence what may possibly be 
the last anniversary in an old woman’s calendar of life 
— is another. I don’t want a vacant chair around my 
table to-morrow, which will be set for five people.” 

And Eustis, smiling a trifle bitterly to think what 
barren days he had fallen upon when he could extract 
any satisfaction from such a source, had written a boy- 
ishly affectionate acceptance, and so, they were all 
coming. 

“ Rose ! ” 

Miss Denton sent her voice out to the back gallery, 
where Rose, (much stronger and less emaciated by far 
than when we first saw her), sat patiently cutting up 
okra pods into little round slices, which she would string 
after a while, and hang up to dry for Miss Denton’s 
winter supply of gumbo.” 

“Yes’m!” she called back without moving. Her 
lap full of okra pods, somewhat hampered her. 

“ Rose ! I am going to give a dinner party to-morrow, 
and I want to talk with you about it.” 

“A dinner party! That’s something wuth talkin’ 
’bout. I’ll be with you, ma’am, jus’ as soon as ever I 
can rid my lap of this yer mess.” 

In all the months Rose had been with Miss Denton 


l6o WITHOUT BLEMISH. 

now, no one had ever sat down to the unnecessarily 
large table in the unnecessarily spacious dining-room 
but the little old lady herself, who, perched in one of 
the old-fashioned, high-backed dining-room chairs, 
which showed, from a rear view, only a section of the 
tiicking-comb in her back hair, had always impressed 
Rose, unimpressionable as she generally was, as a much 
lonelier object than a solitary sparrow on the house- 
top. Notwithstanding that Rose had come to the old 
Rodman place with the avowed intention of staying 
only until she should have earned money enough to 
take her further on to her mother over in Louisiana, 
she was staying on quite indefinitely and contentedly in 
the old aimless fashion — quiescent until some fresh im- 
petus in the current of her days should set her adrift once 
more. “ Perhaps, after all,” she reasoned within herself, 
“ mammy may be dead. Then I would have given up a 
good place for no gain. Better hold on, ’till you know 
for certain when t’ let go.” So, she “ held on,” not feeling 
morally or legally bound to any one person, or place, 
or course of action. So long as things were pleasant. 
Rose was passive. And shrewd Miss Denton read her 
as easily as if she had been a primer printed in double 
pica. 

“Yes, Rose, a real dinner party!” Miss Denton 
repeats quite grandly, when Rose presently presents 
herself, wiping her sticky hands on the corner of her 
apron. 


M/SS DENTON GIVES A DINNER, l6l 

How many folks? " Rose asks practically. 

“Five.” 

“ Five ! Why that’ll about clean out the neighbor- 
hood, won’t it ? ” 

Miss Denton laughed abstractedly. She was setting 
to-morrow’s dinner table, and cooking to-morrow’s din- 
ner, and dressing herself for to-morrow’s festival all at 
once. 

“No, oh, no,” she said in tardy reply, “ there are a 
good many white people scattered about among these 
old hills when you come to look for them. This is 
only one household, Mrs. Stanhope’s family.” 

“ That’s the old blind lady at the Hall.” 

“ Yes, poor dear thing.” 

“ I thought she didn’t have no fam’ly but one son.” 

“ No family proper,” said Miss Denton, who, for lack 
of other outlet, frequently made colloquial use of Mrs. 
Banks, “ but she has two young orphan girls whom 
she has reared almost like her own children and they 
really are portions of her family. They are almost 
young ladies now. And very happy girls they are. I 
only hope nothing will ever occur to make them 
less so.” 

The closing clause of this sentence was given with 
an aggressiveness that was altogether thrown away on 
her listener. It was as if Miss Denton in capacity of 
judge was charging a jury. 

“ That was one of ’em that walked through the 


i 62 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


woods with me, that fust day ? ” said Mrs. Banks, always 
willing to prolong her social chats with her mistress. 

“ Yes. The older, the prettier and the better. Olga 
is a sweet good girl and I love her very much.” 

‘‘ She seemed like a rale nice young lady. Purty 
mannered, you know.” 

Miss Denton fidgeted a trifle nervously and said 
with some tartness : “ Yes, she’s all that. Now then to 
our dinner. You know Betsy can never be relied upon 
in an emergency. Whenever you want things best she 
can be relied upon to have them worst. She gets the 
trimbles,” as she calls it, over the slightest variation 
in routine. It would never do to trust the pie-crust to 
her, nor am I ever sure how her light bread is going to 
turn out,” which remarks naturally diverted the dis- 
cussion from the coming banqueters to the banquet 
itself, and Miss Denton found to her pleased surprise, 
that she had a very able coadjutor in Mrs. Banks. 

Why really. Rose !” she said in a final burst of enthu- 
siasm over the perfected programme, “ I believe I can 
trust you to attend to the entire affair, and I’ll play 
lady to-morrow. One would actually think the super- 
intending of dinner-parties was quite in your line.” 

Not lately,” the woman answered, a dark cloud 
passing suddenly over her face that had brightened 
under her mistress’s words of praise, “ but a long time 
ago, when mammy was Mr. Trowbridge’s cook and 
housekeeper. I’ve had the settin’ of many a fine table for 


M/SS DENTON GIVES A DINNER. 163 

quality folks, and many’s the fine dinner IVe holp 
mammy to figger out for the young master. Some 
things we don’t never forget in this world, Miss 
Denton.” 

“ That is true. Rose, very true, my poor girl,” said her 
mistress, sobered at the mention of Waring’s name. 
Then she picked up her big needles and fell to knitting 
silently, while Rose went back to her okra pods on the 
sunny back gallery. 

Rose seemed quite bent on making Miss Denton’s 
birthday fete a shining sucess. Despite the buffetings 
she had endured at the hand of fate, there was in her a 
deep-seated kindliness of heart and an impulsive if not 
enduring sense of gratitude, that made of her employer 
for the time being the object of her warmest affection. 
Totally untrained morally and mentally, stunned and 
blunted in her finest sensibilities, her very ignorance of 
a higher heritage endowed her with a certain soft 
humility inexpressibly touching, to whomsoever could 
see in her any thing more than a haggard and rather 
slatternly serving woman, attached to a thoughtful and 
considerate mistress. 

Dressed with unusual regard for tidiness and smiling 
benignantly, she held herself in readiness to relieve the 
ladies from Stanhope Hall of their veils and bonnets the 
next day, when Eustis deposited the three of them 
on Miss Denton’s front steps and drove around to the 
stable in the rear. 


164 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


Olga nodded pleasantly to her acquaintance of the 
woods, and Rose received the recognition smilingly. 
Miss Denton’s keen eyes were upon them. Surely if 
her pretty Olga really were standing in the presence of 
her mother, nature would give some hint of the shame- 
ful secret. Perhaps Rose already knew ! Perhaps she 
had followed the child here ! Perhaps she was planning 
her own time and manner of revelation ! But the placid 
look that rested only a second on the girl’s face, before 
she turned to offer her arm to Mrs. Stanhope forbade 
such a wild theory. 

No. It was evident, that strong as the girl’s like- 
ness to Waring Trowbridge was, it had never yet 
occurred to Rose, to imagine that the child she had 
left years before in the Cleveland asylum, was stand- 
ing in her presence on the hills of Mississippi. 

“ And may it never occur to her ! ” Miss Denton men- 
tally ejaculated, bustling about her visitors in a perfect 
flutter of mixed nervousness and satisfaction. 

“This wretched veil! It’s tied in a dozen knots I do 
believe,” said Ginia crossly, dropping her tired arms 
by her side and turning her veiled face toward where 
Olga was standing ready to lead Mrs. Stanhope across 
the hall to the sitting-room. 

“ Can I help you, miss ? ” Rose was at her back with 
the words. “ You’ve been a-tuggin’ so hard,” she said 
with a laugh, “ that you’ve worsened matters consid- 
erable.” 


MISS DENTON GIVES A DINNER. 165 

“ Well, we' will leave Miss Virginia in your hands, 
Rose. Mr. Eustis has had enough of himself by this 
time,” said Miss Denton, as she led the way, followed 
by Mrs. Stanhope and Olga. 

“ Seems like you mus’ V been in a hurry when you 
tied this veil on this morning,” says Rose at Ginia's 
back. 

I was. Fm always in a hurry. Somebody is for- 
ever saying, do make haste, Virginia ! I hate to be 
hurried.” 

And you’ve tied a little bunch of hair and the ends 
of a blue velvet string and the veil all together.” 

“ Cut it if you can’t untie it. Fm not going to spend 
the day here under my veil,” Ginia says imperatively. 

“ Is there any beads that’ll spill off, if I cuts the 
string sorter sudden like ? ” Rose asks, coming back 
from Miss Denton’s work-stand with a pair of scissors 
in her hand. 

“Nothing but this trumpery!” says Ginia, jerking 
from her bosom a bunch of jingling trifles, “ and I 
don’t know that it would make any difference if they 
were spilled or not, as you call it : I just keep on wear- 
ing them because it seems as if Fd been born with 
them on.” 

Rose glanced at the trifles with slight curiosity. An 
ashen pallor overspread her face, and the scissors 
dropped with harsh clatter to the ground. She stooped 
and picked them up with a trembling hand. 


i66 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


** You’ll let me look at ’em, missy, won’t you ? ” she 
asked with the timid reverence of one asking permis- 
sion to handle the crown jewels of England. She took 
in her dusky fingers the trumpery which Ginia extended 
toward her the full length of the velvet. The 
girl slightly recoiled from jthe close contact. The hand 
was the hand of a mulatto ! 

“ I’ll give them to you,-” she said with a petulant 
laugh, “ since you admire them so much, if you’ll only 
free me from this abominable veil. I’m tired of stand- 
ing here.” 

A smooth agate watch-seal with the velvet slipped 
through its gold loop ! A small silver mounted alliga- 
tor’s tooth, and a pierced quarter of a dollar! That was 
what Ginia’s “ trumpery ” consisted of. Rose turned 
the coin absently in her hand. 1852,” she muttered, 
“ yes, that’s the date.” 

She silently snipped the velvet in two where it was 
knotted with the hair and the veil. Then with nerve- 
less hands she loosed the knot and lifted the veil from 
the girl’s face, fastening her eyes in a passionate hungry 
gaze on the fresh young beauty now revealed to her. 

“ Here take them ! I said you might have them. 
The twenty-five cent piece is the only thing worth tak- 
mg. 

“ I wouldn’t part with ’em, honey, if I was you. 
Maybe yo’ mammy put ’em roun’ yo’ neck when you 
was little and she was nigh to you.” 


M/SS DENTON GIVES A DINNER. 167 

Ginia winced at the word “mammy." “White chil- 
dren have mothers, Rose, little darkeys have ‘ mammys’," 
she said lightly, laying her hat on the bed and passing 
her hands over the hair that rippled crisply to its very 
roots. 

Rose’s throat emitted a gasping, gurgling sound, but 
Ginia was thinking more of her own pretty reflection 
in the glass than of this queer chamber-maid of Miss 
Denton’s. 

“ Maybe yo’ mam — your ma’s dead, then,’’ said the 
woman, whose wistful eyes followed every motion of 
the lithe young form before the glass. 

“ Of course she is ! ’’ Ginia’s voice was growing repel- 
lent under this oppressive curiosity. She was study- 
ing the effect of the powder on her nose. Miss Den- 
ton did keep such poor stuff in her toilet case, “ I’m 
sorry I can’t remember her.’’ 

“ I wouldn’t part with ’em, honey, if I was you.” 
Rose advanced with the mended velvet in her hands. 
“ I ’spect you cut yb’ first tooth on this little alliga- 
tor tooth, an’ maybe you used to sorter think this little 
seal was the parties’ thing in the worl’ ! ’’ 

“ Maybe I did. But I’m never going to cut any 
more teeth, Rose, and I don’t think the seal a bit pretty 
now. I’ve said I was going to throw the things away 
a dozen times ! ’’ 

“All the same. I’d keep on a wearin’ of ’em, missy. 
Let me tie ’em roun’ yo’ neck oncet mo’ ! ’’ 


i68 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


^^What a queer woman you are. You really sound 
as if you were begging for something. Of course I 
don’t want to force the things on you. Ollie says she 
don’t believe I could sleep of nights if I should miss 
them from my neck.” 

She bent her head for Rose to retie the string about 
her neck. “You don’t wear no ear-rings,” said the 
woman, her burning gaze passing from Ginia’s pretty 
pink ears back to her amused eyes. 

“ No ! some stupid pierced one ear and left the 
other unpierced, and I’d like to punish them for it 
some way.” 

“ Maybe y ma done that too ! ” 

“ Did what ? ” 

“Punched one ear an’ then couldn’t stan’ bearin’ you 
cry an’ let t’other one alone. You know mammies — or 
— mothers is mighty tender hearted things, missy. 
Does you remember any thing ’t all about your’n? ” 

“ No, nothing at all.” 

“ Maybe she died when you was real little.” 

“ I believe she did.” 

“ Down South here ? ” 

“ No, up North. There, I hope you’re done ques- 
tioning.” 

“ Yo’ boot’s unbuttoned at the top, missy, let Rose 
button it for you.” 

Virginia planted her foot on a round of the nearest 
chair. Rose kneeled and closed the gap left by the 


MISS DENTON GIVES A DINNER. 169 

heedless wearer of the little boots. She lingered over 
her task. 

Thank you, you’re real obliging,” says the girl, 
bringing her foot down to the floor and skipping gayly 
out of the room before the slower moving Rose had 
risen to her feet. 

Like a Brahmin making salutation at the throne of 
his idolatry. Rose, with clasped hands pressed to her 
wildly beating heart, bent her forehead until her lips 
rested on the spot the girl’s feet had just touched. 
She kissed it twice, thrice, a dozen times passionately, 
then stood up quickly and glanced about to see if her 
strange action had been seen of any other eye than the 
All-seeing One. 

“ She’s mine ! She’s mine ! My purty darlin’ ! My 
sweet baby ! God fetched me here so’s I might have 
the comfort uv lookin’ at her. Jus’ lookin’ at her. I 
wouldn’t claim her, oh no, I wouldn’t shame her ! She 
shan’t never know but what she had a mother, ’stead 
uv only a po’ no ’count mammy like me. I wouldn’t 
spile yo’ chances, my sweety, not if dis po’ heart breaks 
for the want of a kiss or a word of love from them 
sweet lips. De Lord’s done better by her, than I could 
’a’ done. She’s in His hands an’ thar I’ll leave her, my 
purty one, my ve’y own.” 

Going up to the bed she picked up the veil and the 
hat and the gloves that Ginia had flung down there. 
She kissed them reverently, fondling them, and wiping 


170 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


the scalding tears from her eyes for fear they might 
fall on her darling’s things and leave a stain ! The stain 
of a mother’s tears ! Miss Denton’s voice broke dis- 
cordantly upon her trance of emotion. She was 
wanted ! Hastily dropping the little gloves she had 
been caressing, she slipped out by a back way, and 
when Miss Denton, despairing of making her hear, 
came finally in search of her, she found her engrossed 
in the mysteries of a custard for dinner. 


CHAPTER XV. 


SEED BY THE WAYSIDE. 



O Eustis Stanhope, fresh from the teeming activities 


J. of the old world cities, where the necessity for 
recreation and the duty of amusing oneself is seriously 
recognized and gone about with as much of systematic 
deliberation as is bestowed upon any other obligation, 
the stagnant possibilities of life as he viewed it now 
were little less than appalling. His choice of homes 
lay between Stanhope Hall and the plantation across 
the river in the Louisiana swamp. In the one he would 
lead the life of a well-cared-for ruminant, a sort of stall- 
fed animal, with all his useless strength and capabilities 
pent up within a sleek well-curried hide ; in the other 
the ruminant might apply his muscle to the drudgery 
of the work oxen and exchange his sleekness for a more 
creditable shagginess, with occasional honorable scars 
from the friction of the heavy yoke, or the prodding of 
the ox goad ! Neither alternative appealed to his sym- 
pathies very attractively. As things had turned out, it 
would have been infinitely preferable if that European 
experiment had never been tried. It was just so much 


172 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


money wasted. His dream of supplementing his studies 
with travel, accompanied by his mother, had been rudely 
shattered, and there was nothing left for him to do but 
to take up the life others were leading around him. 
That he could infuse a new spirit into the sluggish 
current of society in his own neighborhood never once 
occurred to him, or that he could go across to the 
plantation and there inaugurate a grand move toward 
the enlightenment of his one time slaves never occurred 
to him either. No Stanhope had ever been radical in 
any respect. They had always been pre-eminently con- 
servative. If, as a family, they had possessed any special 
private policy, it had been a sort of laissez-faire prin- 
ciple until opposition had touched that one supremely 
sensitive spot, personal honor. Therefore, it came 

perfectly natural to this last representative of the name 

* 

to accept things as he found them, and, if the truUi 
were known, it is probable the disappointed youth took 
considerable credit to himself for taking them as well 
as he did. This is how he found the two alternatives 
of his life. Stanhope Hall or the plantation, staring him 
in the face. 

Settled down at the Hall he could see the days 
stretching into weeks, the weeks into months, and the 
months into years, with scarce one shade of color more 
or less dark to distinguish the one from the other. 
Life had come to a stand-still in that region since the 
war, and the most fertile imagination could conjure up 


SEED BY THE WA YSIDE. 


173 


no reason why it should ever move on again at a more 
rapid pace. Apart from the erection of the cotton 
factories that had given a wholesome impetus to one 
branch of trade, and been the occasion of a sort of 
mushroom growth of small cottages suitable for the 
needs of the factory hands, and the ambitious little 
railroad whose capacity for growth would be exhausted 
by the time it reached Jackson, there was nothing upon 
which to predicate a brighter future for his native 
place. The town swarmed with young men of his own 
caliber. Born into a sphere of life where the necessity 
for being trained for work in the trenches of the 
great battle of humanity against Fate had not 
seemed very urgent, they found themselves placed 
by circumstances in the very hottest of the fray, 
unarmed, undrilled, powerless ! Little better than 
so many targets for the slings and arrows of outrag- 
eous fortune. It dimly dawned on Eustis, that his 
mother would have consulted his best interests, if, when 
the war left her sole arbitrator of his fortunes, she had 
apprenticed him to some honest craftsman, or handed 
him over bodily to some energetic business man to be 
molded into something better than a sort of ornamental 
lay figure that the European trainers had sent back 
to grace (?) his ancestral halls. Small comfort to him 
that he was only one of a multitude in like predica- 
ment. (Young men with the average Caucasian’s intelli- 
gence, energy and capacity, with absolutely nothing upon 


174 


WITHOUT BLEMISH 


which to expend them.) In profitless review of the 
outlook and the avenues of activity that summed up so 
meagerly, he began with the professions, according the 
ministry priority by courtesy. The few churches of his 
native place were more than adequate for the require- 
ments of the regular church-goers, and each pulpit had 
its incumbent that was mellowing and growing old in 
unison with the mellowing of the structures them- 
selves. Missionary work was scarcely possible, as, 
apart from the few well organized ecclesiastical fami- 
lies, the colored people were the only subjects for 
evangelistic work, and they clung tenaciously to the 
color-line insistance of colored preachers for colored 
congregations. Not that Eustis for a second contem- 
plated action in that line. It was simply one process 
of that mental review of the possibilities of the situ- 
ation by which he was proving to himself that every 
avenue of usefulness was closed against him. The 
doctors were the same all sufficient lot he remembered 
from his earliest boyhood. Even the hand of disease 
seemed restfully folded in that serene atmosphere of 
healthfulness, where was none of that rush and 
skurry and mental excitement or bodily exhaustion that 
superinduces sickness or hastens dissolution. He could 
not flatter himself that the medical profession was suffer- 
ing for lack of his adoption. The lawyers! They were 
like so many rats in a barn from which all the grain 
has been long since removed. They scampered about 


SEED B Y THE WA YSIDE. 


175 


the barren dusty floor in hopes of an occasional sound 
kernel, and while it was all luck who should get the 
rare grain, it was a melancholy surety that the major- 
ity would have to satisfy their cravings with husks. 
Trade avenues were scarce and choked to repletion by 
the fortunate few who had friends at court. So there 
was nothing but the mechanical departments left. And 
there ! Why with the will and determination of a dozen 
Napoleon Bonapartes rolled into one, he could not plane 
a rough plank into a smooth one or lay one square 
foot of a brick wall acceptably to the most indulgent 
of contractors ! So that life at the Hall must resolve 
itself into rising in time for a late breakfast, loung- 
ing about the house with a cigar in his mouth for an 
hour or two after breakfast, riding into town first to the 
post-oflice, then to “ some fellow’s ” office, where a lot of 
other fellows would join him to beguile the empty hours 
by talking of the hard lines they had all fallen upon, 
or drearily discuss some moldy bit of gossip, or fatuously 
wonder what the country was coming to, or vainly con- 
struct possible futures for themselves or their neigh- 
borhood out of material as intangible as the baseless 
fabric of a dream ! After which, he would canter, per- 
haps alone, or perhaps in company with some other 
cumberer of the earth, back over the often trod ground, 
back to the big lonely house, back to the quiet pres- 
ence of the blind woman who sat with pathetic 
patience* through all the joyless days, smiling only 


176 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


when he chose to make her smile. Back to dispatch a 
dinner eaten at the heathenish hour of two o’clock 
and which left on his hands the burden of a long after- 
noon in which nothing came between another cigar 
(smoked amid the lonely grandeur of the library 
whose well filled shelves did not supply all the cravings 
of a young and lusty nature), and the blessed oblivion 
of the night time ! 

“ Great God, and there are so many years of it to be 
lived through ! ” He said it aloud ! then looked across 
the table to where Olga sat behind the breakfast things, 
frowned first and then laughed apologetically. He 
was late at table ! Mrs. Stanhope had long since 
finished her breakfast and was then walking slowly up 
and down the sunny terraces where the azaleas grew, 
leaning on Virginia’s arm. Ginia would infinitely have 
preferred pouring out coffee for the son to walking 
with the mother. But hers and Olga’s duties were 
clearly defined, and she had never yet ventured on any 
act of overt disobedience. 

Olga looked up from the crochet table-mat that kept 
her fingers busy while she was waiting for him to finish 
his meal, and said with a little air of patronizing pity 
that sat quaintly enough upon the pauper orphan, 
addressing the heir of the house: 

“ I know just what you mean, and I am so very 
sorry for you. I wish I could help you, but I don’t 
know how. It must be dreadful to be so rich that one 


SEED BY THE WAYSIDE. * 177 

can not work. Working kills the time as nothing else 
can. But I suppose there’s nothing you could do ! ” 
with gravely inquiring eyes. 

Nothing, little Mentor,” said Eustis, pushing his 
chair back with an impatient gesture. He was annoyed 
that he should have given this quaint girl an oppor- 
tunity to pity him. Not that she did it in any wise 
offensively. She. seemed always, in her demure man- 
ner, to be studying the problems of the lives that 
came under her observation, and her commentaries 
thereon were almost involuntary. In an unobtrusive 
fashion Olga had laid her girlish hand upon the helm, 
and whether consciously or unconsciously, those about 
her were submitting to her sway. Now with a word 
of encouragement, now with a coaxing smile, again with 
a soft spoken plea, or yet again with mocking raillery 
so gently dealt that it was like pelting its subject with 
rose leaves, she managed, without once impressing her 
own personality upon her sentiments to exert a most 
beneficent influence on the household. And Eustis, 
to her singularly fearless nature, was no more awe-inspir- 
ing than Virginia in her wayward petulance. Even 
now her earnest eyes asked pardon for the daring of 
her lips as she went on : 

“ Will we go over to the plantation as we always do 
in spring, Mr. Stanhope ? It is so pretty and busy there 
in the early plowing time. There is so much more to 
interest one there than here. It is grand here, but — ” 


178 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


“ But what ?” 

[He was still seated, was rolling up his napkin very 
deliberately while she was speaking. Pie was always 
singularly indulgent to Olga’s utterances, so much so, 
that when put on the defensive by his own conscience 
and his mother he had said explanatorily, “ The 
child is neither pert nor forward. She never speaks 
unless she seems impelled to do so by.something within 
her stronger than inclination. It is literally from the 
fullness of her heart that her lips speak, and what she 
says is always worth listening to.”] 

“ This is the sort of place a man ought to come back 
to rest in, after he has done something in the world to 
tire him.” 

And you think one could find that exhaustive sort 
of occupation over on the plantation do you, little 
Olga? Shall I look for it in the busy whirr of my gin- 
stands? or in the maddening activity of the picking sea- 
son ? or in the soul-satisfying occupation of issuing pork 
and meal to the hands ?” 

You are laughing at me,” says Olga, flushing a little 
as she carefully puts the top on the sugar bowl and 
walks away with it to lock it up in the safe, “ and yet, 
there is better work than that to be found over on the 
plantation.” 

“ I am laughing at you now,” says Eustis, watching 
the conscientious removal of the sugar and the butter 
and the cream to the locked safe ; “ it strikes me as 


SEED B Y THE WA VSJDE. 


179 


inexpressibly funny, this pains-taking over the small 
leakages and the reckless expenditure in large things. 
Now, doubtless, you would feel as if you had committed 
a great moral trangression if you failed to turn the 
key on that sugar bowl, or did not guard that little red 
and white key-basket with the jealous vigilance of a 
Cerberus ? ” 

Yes ! ” says Olga, dubiously taking up the basket 
in question, and smiling at him in a perplexed fashion. 
“ I am obeying Mrs. Stanhope’s orders, but I some- 
times wonder if one can teach honesty to servants by 
showing them so plainly that you don’t believe they 
have any. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t be better 
to spend more time in teaching them and less in watch- 
ing them ! They must have consciences, you know, 
somewhere.” 

Eustis was fairly on his feet now, and there was no 
smile on his face. 

“You are handling a bigger thing than your key- 
basket now, child. Best confine your speculations for 
a little time to come to smaller matters than to the 
enlightenment of the hands on the plantation or about 
the yard here, either.” 

“ I was not thinking of them as ‘ hands ’,” says Olga 
daringly. “ I was thinking of them as souls.” 

But she doubted whether he had even heard her, he 
walked away so very rapidly, and presently she saw 
him join his mother on the terrace and take his place 


i8o 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


by her other side. She was busying herself about the 
lamps in the pantry when Ginia came to her a little 
later on with an amiable proffer of assistance. 

I believe I do want a little help this morning, 
Ginia. Mr. Stanhope was so very late to breakfast, and 
I’ve got to make lemon custards for dinner. You’re 
sure Mrs. Stanhope won’t want you just yet? ” 

“ Not for half an hour,” says Ginia, daintily selecting 
the polishing of the chimneys as the least offensive 
branch of lamp cleaning. “ By the way, Olga,” she 
says, blowing softly into the chimney and eying it 
critically in search of cloudy spots, “ what did you say 
to Mr. Eustis to send him*out on the terrace so huffy?” 

“ So huffy ! ” Olga paused with the coal-oil can poised 
in mid-air. She was too surprised to rest it on any 
thing. 

Yes, huffy ! I heard him say to his mother that : 

‘ that child Olga had gotten hold of some very odd 
notions.’ That he shouldn’t wonder if you developed ' 
into a first class missionary some of these days, with 
the darkeys for your scholars, and his mother told him 
she did not think it was right for him to encourage you 
to talk such nonsense; and he said, he was not aware 
that he had encouraged you, in fact, he did not think 
you needed much encouragement, when a new idea 
took possession of you. And I ’m so afraid, Ollie, that he 
thinks you quite bold. I don’t tell you this to make 
you uncomfortable, but because I think you ought to 


SEED BY THE WAYSIDE. iSi 

know how very much displeased he seemed about 
something and Aunty Stanhope too/’ she added, in her 
most airy manner ; and having thus implanted her thorn, 
Ginia’s interest in the lamp cleaning process so rapidly 
diminished that Olga was soon left alone to finish the 
task and to ruminate over what she had just heard. 
Had she been bold without knowing it? She flushed 
hot at the thought. 

While Eustis out on the terrace was saying to his 
mother : “ There is a substratum of good common- 

sense in every thing she says, too. I find myself wonder- 
ing though, what has given a charity girl with such 
limited opportunities her extremely thoughtful bent. 
One would expect to find her, as Virginia is, grateful 
fora home, thankful for her food and clothing, intent 
only on securing their continuance by her good behavior, 
rather than puzzling her girlish brain over social prob- 
lems.” 

I shall take occasion to reprove Olga for her for- 
wardness,” says Mrs. Stanhope severely. “ My help- 
lessness is likely to prove a calamity in more ways than 
one. She is the last one around me though whom I 
should have suspected of taking advantage of it. I am 
afraid the prominence I have been compelled to give 
her has turned her head a little. It is excessively pre- 
sumptuous for her to forget that she is left at table for 
no other purpose than to pour out your coffee.” 

Eustis flung his cigar over the terrace with angry 


i 82 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


impatience ! Why was it he could never approach the 
subject of Olga’s peculiarities without throwing his 
mother into this State of unreasonable asperity? The 
girl interested him as a study. But it was a study that 
he resolved to pursue in the future unaided. He had 
not meant to involve the little thing in trouble. What a 
whining cub of a tell-tale he was being made to appear ! 

“ If you say any thing to Olga on this subject, 
mother, I shall be excessively annoyed. There never 
was a young girl freer from presumption or conceit. 
She can no more help the peculiar trend of her mind 
than she can the color of her hair and eyes.” 

“ Perhaps,” says Mrs. Stanhope impatiently, “ they 
all have one common origin.” 

“And,” Eustis continues generously, not noticing 
her interruption, “ it was because she simply voiced my 
own inward dissatisfaction this morning, that I laid so 
much stress on her words.” 

“What especially?” 

“ She spoke of this place as grand and stately and 
just the sort of a place a man should want to come 
back to rest in after he had accomplished something in 
the world.” 

“Insufferable!” says Mrs. Stanhope, and Eustis 
could feel the hand resting on his arm trembling with 
rage. 

“ Precocious, perhaps, but scarcely insufferable. On 
the contrary, I think you fail entirely to do full justice to 


SEED B Y THE WA Y SIDE. 


183 

this one of your orphans. No ! ” he gently tightened his 
hold on his mother’s hand, as he felt her drawing it 
away from his clasp, “ I do not intend to permit any 
misunderstanding of our relative positions, mother. If 
Olga, think of it, mother, nameless Olga, were what she 
is, and the acknowledged possessor of some honorable 
name you and I would both hold her in priceless esteem. 
As it is, she is an object of my most profound pity and 
I would not insult her^elplessness by one disrespectful 
thought. That she interests me I do not deny, but I 
beg of you once and for all, to remember that no effort 
on your part could possibly widen the breach between 
us. A breach that is already as wide as the space from 
pole to pole.” 

Mrs. Stanhope was silenced, but not satisfied. That 
Eustis meant every word he said she did not doubt. 
But she knew the possibilities and the dangers that 
loomed up before them all very much better than he 
in his youthful ignorance possibly could. The very ele- 
ment of pity, that he already confessed to, was alarming. 
Rigid as were her views on the subject of her pledged 
word, she began seriously to contemplate an unreserved 
statement of facts to her son. Once let him suspect 
that a drop of negro blood tainted Olga’s veins and — 
he was safe. In the exaggeration of her terror she 
began to accuse herself of criminality in harboring one 
even so remotely tainted. Olga had wound herself 
about her affections inextricably — but — Olga must go ! 


CHAPTER XVI. 


THE PRODIGAL AT HOME. 

S PRING-TIME with its man/ voiced activities held 
the fleeting months in gentle bondage once more. 
On the plantation over the river a general note of prep- 
aration was sounding that stirred even the sluggish 
pulses of old Dora, now nearing the end of her allotted 
span. 

When the plow hands began to turn up the dark, 
rich mold with the shining blade ; and the wild bees 
swarmed and buzzed about the lofty tree tops; and 
the wrens came again to the cranny in the cabin eaves 
where they had nested unmolested year after year so 
regularly ; and the sweet white pendants of the locust 
trees swayed like fragrant censers in the soft spring air, 
Dora took up the out-door life that contributed so much 
to the general comiort of the house-hold by adding 
spring vegetables to the rather monotonous diet of 
pickled pork. With her lap full of seed bags of all sizes 
and descriptions, she sat upon the rough hewn block 
that formed the one step up from the yard into the 
cabin door, trying to decide whether it was settled 


THE PRODIGAL A T HOME. ■ 1 85 

enough ” to entrust her cabbage seed to the beds so 
carefully prepared by Reuben. The question to sow or 
not to sow just then perplexed Dora’s mind to the 
exclusion of any other. 

Reuben had come from the garden to aid in her 
decision, and stood leaning on his hoe-handle while 
Dora exultingly displayed her wealth of peas and beans 
and okra and cabbage seeds saved by her own thrift. 
Time deals leniently with the sons and daughters of 
Ham. Years may come and go with scarcely a change 
of lineament or the adding of a line to. their creaseless 
features. Nor is this strange. Simple in their habits, 
living their lives largely in the open air, devoid of 
mental worries, and incapable from lack of training to 
take thought for the morrow, they vegetate peacefully 
through the eventless years that bridge the space 
between their cradles and their graves. 

This is why old Dora, sitting on the cabin step 
intent upon her seed discussion, and Reuben, leaning 
hatless and coatless on his hoe-handle, looked so very 
unchanged to a woman who laid her hand upon the 
wooden latch of their rickety yard gate before they 
had discovered her approach. It was hard for her 
to realize the number of years that had rolled over her 
head and theirs, since she had last heard their voices. 

It was the dropping of the wooden latch and the low 
admonitory growl of the shaggy cur curled up on the 
gallery behind them, that made the old people look 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


1 86 

up at last and stare at the advancing figure. It was 
Rose, who greeted them suddenly. 

“ Howdy, mammy ! Howdy, daddy ! ” 

She held out her hand in its rusty black cotton 
glove. Reuben was nearest to her and he mechanically 
extended his, all grimy as it was with the soil he had 
been crumbling for the cabbage seed, but no glimmer 
of recognition came into his face. Rose’s voice 
betrayed no agitation, no resentment as she turned 
toward her mother. The cultivation of the affections 
and the emotions was no part of the oult of their race. 
“ Don’t you know me, mammy? It’s me ! Rose ! ” 
Dora stared at her hard, resting both outstretched 
hands on her knees, which were far apart to make a 
capacious lap for the numberless seed bags. Her 
breath came thick and heavily, her head wagged slowly 
in a voiceless negative ! The woman before her was 
thin and old and haggard ! Her Rose was young and 
pretty and plump ! She was not to be deceived so 
easily. 

“ I don’ know nuffin ’tall ’bout you,” she says pres- 
ently. You may ‘mammy ’ me till kingdom come en 
you can’t fool me inter callin’ you Rose ! Go way, nigger, 
you ’spose I done forgit my own chile, ef she wur a 
good fur nuffin triflin’ critter en runned away from me ? ” 
This was a catastrophe that Rose had not anticipa- 
ted. She had imagined a variety of things intervening 
to prevent her and her mother from coming together 


THE PRODIGAL A T HOME. 


187 


again, but, that she should stand in her mother s pres- 
ence and fail of being recognized and gladly welcomed 
was not among the possibilities she had imagined. 

“You don’t mean you done forgot me, mammy? 
And you too, daddy? Indeed, indeed I’m Rose.” 

“ Go 'way, I tell you ! I don’ know nuffin ’tall ’bout 
you ! Reuben,” seeing the perplexity in the old man’s 
face, “ don’t you go en let no triflin’ yaller gal like that 
fool you into thinkin’ she’s our Rose ! why, Reube, 
don’t you ’member my Rosie no better ’nthat? Rose’s 
cheeks was as round as a apple, an’ h^r eyes shined 
bright as de stars, and she usen to keep herself smart 
en trim like, don’t you know, Reube ? Ef you’s huntin’ 
work,” turning severely on Rose, “ you’ jes as well step 
on up t’ house. Reuben’s got all the help he wants 
in his squad, en I ain’ got no use for them which don’ 
look like dey could swing a cat by de tail. You look 
sorter sickly like. Thar’s de road to de big house. 
Mebbe w’ite folks kin fin’ some use fer you.” 

Dora extended one long sinewy arm in the direction 
of the road over which she and the child she was now 
harshly repudiating had traveled so often hand in hand, 
while her lips closed with an uncompromising pres- 
sure. 

“ I knows that road well enough, mammy,” says Rose, 
sullenly turning her back on the sight of it, “ but I 
ain’ gwine to travel it no mo’ t’ please you nor nobody 
else.” 


i88 


WITHOUT BLEMISH 


Poor Rose ! This was not exactly the home coming 
she had looked forward to. She had expected the 
mother whose whole heart had been hers in that care- 
free childhood that seemed so very far away now, to 
receive her back with frantic demonstrations of joy ! 
Bearing in mind her own recent instantaneous recog- 
nition of her child after the lapse of many years, she 
had come to think that the maternal instinct was an 
ineradicable one, including in its grasp something that 
went deeper than the organ of sight, rang truer than 
the organ of speech ! But it was not of her heart dis- 
appointment that she was thinking as she looked 
straight into her mother’s hard shriveled face after 
that defiant refusal to move on. She had not given 
up her easy berth at Miss Denton’s and come back to 
the squalid discomfort of her mother’s cabin cause- 
lessly. With the coming of the spring and the necessity 
for making new contracts with his hands and getting 
the plantation fairly started for another crop, Eustis 
Stanhope had left the Hall and brought his household 
of females over on the Louisiana side. And Rose no 
sooner heard of the flitting than a fierce desire to follow 
and to breathe the same air with her child, seized upon 
her, to the exclusion of every other consideration. In 
vain Miss Denton, divining the cause of her restless- 
ness, and eager to shield her beloved Olga from this 
contact, reminded her of her promise to stay with 
her the year out. In vain she reproached her for the 


THE PRODIGAL A T HOME. 


189 


black ingratitude of her going ! All Rose would say 
was: — “ I’m ’bleeged to go, Miss Denton. It’s again’ 
nature fer me not to go.” So she had gone, and here 
she was, standing at the threshold of the old cabin 
door, face to face with the mother who had been ideal- 
ized by memory into something very much more lov- 
able than this old crone with the seamed and wrinkled 
cheeks, who refused her recognition. 

Reuben, grown wise by experience, saw the angry 
blood mounting into Dora’s swarthy cheeks. If this 
daring woman, standing there matching her sullenness 
against her mother’s obstinacy, stood there very much 
longer, it was quite within the range of possibility, he 
knew, for Dora to eject her forcibly! He prudently 
gathered up his hoe and spade, mopped his bald head 
with the dingy bandanna that hung loosely about the 
neck of his hickory shirt, and shuffled back to the 
garden, casting apprehensive glances backward over his 
shoulder at the two women. Finally Rose hit upon a 
plan for proving her own identity. 

“ Is the old reef plush chair in Mr. Waring’s room 
yet, mammy, with the arm gone, that I used to rock in 
in front of the looking glass on the mantle-piece? ” she 
asks ungrammatically. 

‘‘ What you know ’bout dat chair, en dat glass, en 
dat house enny-which-a-way ? ” Dora asks, bending her 
shaggy brows to look more closely than she had yet 
done at the woman in front of her. But Rose had 


190 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


seen the start she gave when she first began speaking, 
so went on glibly enough : 

And is they got a new hammock? I guess they’s 
had many a one since I used t’almost slip through the 
bottom of the old one. Don’t you remember, mammy, 
how I used to tie the holes together with twine strings 
an’ swing an’ swing whilest you was a-scrubbing up the 
gallery ? An’ the old cedar bucket with the brass 
hoops that stood on the water shelf, with the cocoa- 
nut dipper a-hanging on the nail over it, and you used 
to scrub the brass bands and hold the bucket up for 
me to see how funny my face looked in ’em, don’t 
you remember, mammy? Is they there yet?” 

Old Dora’s hands, that had been jerking and flinging 
the seed bags about in her lap with nervous energy, 
dropped heavily upon her knees. Her tall strong form 
was tremulous with suppressed excitement, she leaned 
forward and scanned the thin yellow face eagerly. 
Time was dimming her vision she knew well, but 
could it be so dim that she would not know her own 
Rose, if she stood in front of her? She shook her head 
slowly from side to side in fresh negation of this 
woman’s claims. “Yes,” she said, “ I remembers all 
that well ’nough ! It was my purty little sassy Rose 
that done all that. But w’at’s that got to do wid you? 
Yes, de old buckit’s thar yit, but w’at you got to do 
wid it ? ” 

“And don’t you remember, mammy, how ole 


THE PRODIGAL A T HOME. 191 

Bose used to crawl through the place in the fence 
yonder, where the pickets was off, and foller us up t’the 
big house ? I reckon Bose is dead now ? " 

“ Yes, Bose is dead now,” says old Dora, no longer 
combatively, only dreamily, as if she were submitting 
to the pilotage of this strange woman, who with resolute 
oars was carrying her backward against the current 
of time and against the current of her own will. “Yes, 
old Bose is dead now ! He used to drive the cows 
home mouty straight of nights ! He did.” 

“And don’t you remember how I used to ride 
to meetin’ behind you, mammy, on old Bet ? and 
she didn’t like none too much to carry double, 
and oncet, law me, how plain it all does come back 
to me, don’t you remember, mammy, my red dress that 
you trimmed with black braid, an’ none uv the folks in 
this place never did come up t’that dress, don’t you 
remember how old Bet just seemed to wait till she 
got to the very softest of the mud for to kick up her 
heels and pitch me, red dress and all, into the nasties’ 
puddle twixt here and old Miss Lathum’s? ” 

Dora chuckled audibly at the reminiscence. “ Dat 
owdacious old Bet, she were a tricky mule en no mis- 
take ! But I lay she got all the tricks tuk outer her 
befo’ she died ! Luke, he rid her off t’ jine the soldiers 
up to Vicksburg. You know Luke, don’t you?” 

“ You know me now, mammy, don’t you ? ” 

Thus brought suddenly back from the past to the 


192 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


present, Dora started as one rudely awakened from 
sleep. What Rose did not know was that her mother’s 
mental faculties were fast failing her. Physically she 
seemed hale and hearty yet, but the power of concen- 
trating her mind on any thing for a long time, or of 
the process of connected reasoning was no longer hers. 
She fixed her eyes on Rose for a silent second, and then 
said in the most matter of fact voice : 

“Knows you ! co’se I knows you. Whar you bin 
all distime. Rose? and whar you leff de boys?” Then 
without waiting for an answer, she continued monoton- 
ously, “ and whar’s yo’ baby? It was a mean trick you 
played yo’ po’ old mammy, gal, a-runnin’ away from her, 
an’ you don’ look like you’d made none too much 
outen yo’ barg’in nuther. I suppose you ain’ come back 
wid more money den you knows wat to do wid ? not 
you. You wouldn’t ’a’ come crawlin’ back to mammy 
lessin you was po’ es a cat. But I don’ mean you 
ain’t welcome.” 

Her voice suddenly went out to Reuben bending 
over the cabbage bed in the garden, “ Reuben ! here’s 
our Rose come back. She don’ look none too strong, 
but den you know my Rosy weren’t never one uv 
yo’ work mules. Come here, honey, and hug yo’ ole 
mammy. De closter you gits de plainer I kin see my 
chile inyo’ eyes. I’seglad t’see you fo’ sho.” 

And thus insensibly through the gamut of emotions 
from repellent distrust to clumsy rejoicing old Dora 


THE PRODIGAL A T HOME. 


193 


passed, sitting there motionless with her lap full of seed, 
while the shabby prodigal unresentfully received her 
tardy recognition. 

All she asked was a haven of refuge near enough to 
her pretty child for her to catch an occasional glimpse 
of her, or to come within sound of her fresh young 
voice, or to touch the hem of her garment with reverent 
fingers. 

That her child should pass through life unscathed 
and unsuspected was the dr«am of poor Rose’s own 
life! From the rich harvest of her daughter’s blessings 
she expected to reap her own aftermath of content. It 
had been the passionate longing of her own early 
days “ to be a lady I ” Her child was a lady ! should 
live a lady! marry like a lady! and die like one, with 
no suspicion of the taint in her blood to cloud her 
happiness. Already visions of Virginia winning the 
heart of Eustis Stanhope and reigning as absolute 
mistress in the stately old Hall over in the hills filled 
the mother’s heart to repletion with proud satisfaction. 
Hungrily as she yearned for the privilege of infolding 
that girlish form in her arms, she would die of that 
hunger before she would jeopardize her darling’s chances 
of being established in life as a lady. All she asked 
was to be the humble self-renouncing witness of her 
child’s social exaltation. So, although this home-com- 
ing, even to her dulled and stunted sensibilities was 
rather grating, she accepted it unmurmuringly as open- 


194 


WITHOUT BLEMISH 


ing to her a stopping place where she could keep her 
unobserved watch over her daughter’s progress. 

That night when Reuben was snoring heavily, sleep- 
ing off the weariness that comes with honest toil, old 
Dora and her daughter sat on the threshold of the cabin 
door with the moonlight flooding their forms and faces 
and their rude surroundings, and softening their hearts 
and loosening their tongues in unison with its mellow- 
ing influences. Much was asked and told by the 
mother to the daughter and by the daughter to the 
mother. Finally a tired silence enveloped them both. 
It was broken by old Dora. 

“ Honey ! you ain’t never told me a word about yo’ 
chile yit ! ” And in an evil moment, first binding her 
mother to solemn secrecy. Rose told the whole story 
of her child’s life as she knew it herself up to the 
moment of their flitting to the plantation. It was 
with a spasm of frightened regret that she added : — 
She’s mine, mammy ! But if ever you let her know 
about it or let her find out she belongs to such as 
you or me ! I — I — ” 

“ You ! you’ll w’at ? ” Dora asks mockingly. 

“ I’d — want to kill you,” says Rose in a vicious 
undertone. 

But Dora only chuckled in a senseless fashion. 
“You’se a fool. Rose. You allers was a fool! You 
never did know which side yo’ bread was buttered on. 
You jus’ let mammy ’lone.” 


THE PRODIGAL A T HOME, 


195 


Then Rose knew what a senseless thing she had 
done in telling her tremendous secret to the mother to 
whom she had always confided her childish wishes and 
her more mature troubles. It was that senseless child- 
ish chuckle of her mother’s that made her recognize 
for the first time that she had intrusted her precious 
child’s safety to the babbling instincts of a half-witted 
dotard. 

A throb of guilty satisfaction stirred her heart that 
night as she lay awake thinking of her own impru- 
dence. 

“ Thank God, she don’t know now which one of them 
it is. She’s sure to think it’s the dark one, if she ever 
sees them, which ain’t likely and her never leaving the 
house,” and feeling relieved by the thought that if the 
worst came to the worst Olga would bear the odium 
meant for Virginia she fell at last into dreamless, con- 
scienceless slumber. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


STORM SHAKEN. 


PRIL, tentative and capricious, had mellowed into 



£\ May, and the plantation was looking its very best. 
Spurred into emulous interest in their labors by the 
presence of the young owner of the place, the work 
had gone on with so much more vim than was custom- 
ary that Mr. Waring Trowbridge, still Eustis’s nominal 
adviser, congratulated him on the fact that the Hard- 
lines crop promised better than any other in the parish. 

The young man himself, wearied of the palsying 
inactivity of the life he led at the Hall, was surprised 
at the degree of interest he succeeded in getting up 
over plantation matters. He was in the saddle nearly 
all the time, either superintending the repairs on 
cabins, on fencing about the place, or watching with 
placid interest the careful process of cutting the cot- 
ton out to a stand. 

Mrs. Stanhope and the girls led as lonely a life as 
over in the hills, but Eustis, kindly regardful for the 
pleasure of the orphans, so far as it was in his power 
to give them any, kept a riding horse for their especial 


/ 


STORM SHAKEN, 


c 


197 


use, and insisted that each one of them should exercise 
on it every day. 

“ You in the morning, Virginia,” he had said, settling 
things in a masterful way that was quite natural with 
him, “ because that is Olga’s busy time, and she in the 
afternoon.” 

This had come to be the regular order of things, and 
accounts for the fact that Virginia and Mrs. Stanhope 
were quite alone in the house on a certain afternoon 
when one of those sudden thunder storms, which come 
in that latitude as a perpetual surprise bursting in upon 
the mild serenity of May, swept over the face of the 
earth. 

Oh ! it frightens me so,” Virginia moaned, sinking 
in abject physical teryor upon her knees by the blind 
woman, and burying'her head in the folds of Mrs. Stan- 
hope’s dress to deaden the awful reverberations of the 
thunder, which, beginning in far off mutterings, came 
nearer and nearer until it burst with the roar of a fierce 
cannonading immediately over and about the unshel- 
tered cottage. 

Mrs. Stanhope laid her hands ungently on the cower- 
ing girl’s shoulders. In her impatient anxiety she shook 
them slightly : 

“Do come out of yourself for once, Virginia. Re- 
member how helpless I am even to see this storm that 
makes you tremble so. Tell me how the sky looks! 
Tell me which way the wind blows ! I am thinking of 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


198 

the crops ! Eustis is so proud of his! Take the field- 
glass and tell me if you can see any thing of him 1 Look 
toward the long-pond field ! If he is out there near 
that deadening there’s no house for him to shelter under, 
and there is danger there indeed ! ” 

“What danger?” says Virginia, spurred by her 
anxiety for Eustis into springing to the rack in the hall 
where the field-glass hung and bringing it to bear on 
the long-pond field. “ I see nothing,” she said finally, 
dropping her tired arm by her side, “ at least nothing 
of him. What danger threatens him more than us ? ” 

“ There is danger in the deadening from the falling 
of limbs 1 how the wind slams those shutters ! 
Can’t some one fasten them back?” Mrs. Stanhope’s 
voice grew querulous from nervousness. 

“ There is no one here but me,” says Virginia, “ and 
I can not. Oh ! ” A vivid flash of lightning once more 
sent her cowering to Mrs. Stanhope’s side. “ It is fear- 
ful! absolutely terrific.” 

“ Where is Olga ? Why is she not here ? She is worth 
a dozen of you, Virginia, when one wants help ! Those 
slamming shutters are torturing me ! Look again and 
see if you can see Eustis ! He must be coming.” 

A temporary lull in the uproar of wind and thunder 
lent Virginia a moment of nerve. Once more raising 
the glass to her eyes she swept the broad acres of young 
cotton and corn that lay between the house and the 
deadening where Eustis was superintending the build- 


C STORM SHAKEN. 199 

ing of a new fence. So sharp a contrast between Olga’s 
usefulness and her own helplessness had never been 
drawn by their benefactress before. It stung Virginia 
to the quick, and she answered with sullen resent- 
ment : 

“ I don’t see anything of your son ! No doubt he is 
taking care of himself and Olga too, somewhere! I 
don’t suppose either one of them is thinking or car- 
ing whether we are frightened to death or not ! I don’t 
see any thing but great banks of black clouds with rag- 
ged green edges rushing across the sky, and the trees 
are bending like whip-cords before the wind, and the 
hands are all scampering back to the quarters as fast 
as mules and legs can carry them, and — oh I ” the 
glass fell to the ground, as she clasped her hands over 
her eyes and moaned plaintively, “ you may be thank- 
ful you are blind so you can not see this awful light- 
ning. Oh ! dear Mrs. Stanhope, do you suppose the 
lightning will strike this house? Oh! did you ever, 
ever, hear such thunder before ? Oh ! I wish we were 
back over in the hills. This little house can be blown 
away so easily. I know it will go at the next gust.” 

Her selfish moaning was drowned in the awful 
uproar of the storm ! Peal after peal of thunder mingled 
with the crackling sound of breaking tree limbs and the 
loose flapping and banging of every shutter about the 
house ! Soon the fierce rattling of heavy hail-stones and 
the swirl of pouring rain, dashed against the weather- 


20(5 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


boarding of the house by the driving wind, made the ele- 
mental uproar complete, while the flashing lightning 
darted into every crevice of the house in demoniacal 
mockery of the pallid girl who had no thought for any one 
but herself at that awful moment. Mrs. Stanhope had 
none for any one but Eustis. Olga, unselfish Olga, 
whose life was being spent in gentle ministration on 
the one and sisterly guardianship of the other of 
these two women, was for the time being completely 
forgotten. That insolent suggestion of Virginia’s 
that Eustis was taking care of himself and Olga too, 
somewhere, Mrs. Stanhope laid aside for the text of 
a future lecture for the petulant girl, who was now 
too badly frightened to be manageable in any way. 
But suppose a germ of truth was hidden away in it ? 

“Take the glass again, Virginia ! My son must be 
coming by this time ! He said he was going to the 
deadening, and there is no house for him to shelter in. 
Look well, girl ! ” 

“ I couldn’t see a regiment of horsemen,” says Vir- 
ginia querulously, adjusting the glass again, “ through 
this white sheet of rain and hail ! Mercy ! It cuts the 
corn into ribbons ; and the cotton fields look as if a 
stalk of cotton had never been planted in them. The 
ground is white with hail-stones ! There ! I hear the 
clatter of hoofs ! That is Prince ! I know the sound 
of his tramping! Your son is safe! I hear the slam- 
ming of the back gate.” 


c 


STORM SHAKEN. 


201 


Quick, put down the glass and have some dry clothes 
for him by the time he gets to the house. It will kill 
him ! Oh ! my reckless boy ! ” as Eustis, stamping the 
rain from his soaked feet, presently called to her cheerily 
from the hall — 

“Can’t come any closer, mother, am as wet as a 
soaked sponge ! I thought you would be worrying over 
the deadening or I wouldn’t have tried to get back to 
the house ! Pretty fierce storm ! Don’t think I ever 
saw a worse. I wish you’d send Olga to mix me some- 
thing hot — ” 

“ Olga has not gotten in from her ride yet,” says Mrs. 
Stanhope, interrupting him placidly. Now that he was 
safe very little else mattered. “ But there are so many 
cabins for her to take shelter in that I haven’t worried 
about her in the least.” 

But Eustis did not take so complaisant a view of ihe 
girl’s exposure to the storm he had just braved not 
without risk. 

“ Not in yet ! ” he said, seizing the glass which Vir- 
ginia had left on a chair and sweeping the storm-rent 
landscape with an anxious gaze, “ why she should have 
been home before the storm began ! Do you know what 
time it is, mother? It’s almost dark! ” 

“ It is always dark with me, son ! ” 

But the familiar plaint passed unnoticed this time. 
Not that Eustis had, or ever could grow indifferent to 
this affliction that enveloped himself and his mother in 


202 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


a dark cloud of awful permanence, but just then he 
was thinking only of Olga. Slight of form, delicately 
molded child that she was, suppose she should have 
been caught out in this storm as he had been, where 
would she take shelter ? And then the terror of it to 
her! 

Virginia,” he said, as she reappeared bringing with 
her the cup of hot lemonade she was proud of having 
thought of unaided, “ do you know which way Olga rode 
this afternoon?” 

“ I heard her say she was going to ride over to Mrs. 
Trowbridge’s. Mrs. Trowbridge promised her, the other 
day, when she was here, to give her some bronze turkey 
eggs and Ollie said she wanted to go for them herself 
so they shouldn’t be shaken too much. She’s going to 
try to raise turkeys, you know.” 

“ Hang the turkey eggs ! What time did she start ? ” 

“Immediately after dinner,” says Virginia, with a 
pout, as she placed the unnoticed lemonade on a stand 
and sulkily left the room. 

“ Then,” says Eustis, more as if he were comforting 
himself than addressing any one else, “ she must be at 
Bendemma,” and laying the field-glass aside he swal- 
lowed the hot lemonade at a few gulps and went off to 
his room to get on some dry clothes. 

The storm was rapidly abating now, and with it Virgin- 
ia’s fears. Hearing Mr. Stanhope’s door close somewhat 
noisily she went back to the sitting-room and began 


STORM SHAR'EN. 


203 


adjusting things rather petulantly. ^ Mrs. Stanhope sat 
with her hands folded over her knitting. It was always 
a sign of mental disturbance with her when the busy 
click-clack of her needles ceased. The clock on the 
mantle struck six, and no sign of Olga yet ! 

The raging of the storm, and her previous anxiety 
about Eustis, and Virginia’s disrespectful coupling of 
Olga’s name with her son’s, and a certain nervous irri- 
tability that had seized upon her over the young man’s 
anxiety for Olga’s safety, all combined to make Mrs. 
Stanhope her harshest and most unjust self for the 
space of a few moments : 

“Virginia,” she said, “stop your restless prowling 
around the room and sit down. I have something to 
say to you.” 

Virginia dropped into a chair by her side word- 
lessly. 

“ If you knew that Olga had ridden over to Mrs. 
Trowbridge’s for turkey eggs, why did you say you sup- 
posed my son was taking care of her and himself dur- 
ing the storm ? ” 

“Because,” said the girl daringly, “I thought he 
liked her well enough to see that no harm came to her 
in the storm. I’m sure he does like Ollie very much. 
And I don’t see why he shouldn’t. You’ve no idea 
how handsonie she is growing to be. She’s quite 
a young lady 3^ou know now. Why I feel like 
a silly child yet, Ollie is so much taller and 


204 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


straighter and handsomer. And I heard Mr. Stan- 
hope tell Mr. Trowbridge, that a better or sweeter girl 
did not live.” 

Mrs. Stanhope winced. She had asked her question 
with a view of leading quietly up to a lecture on the 
proprieties, which she felt that Virginia very much 
needed. She had been answered more fully than she 
cared to be. Virginia’s pretty face wore an expression 
of mingled dissatisfaction and triumph. No compunc- 
tion for the stab she had purposely inflicted disturbed 
her narrow soul. All the old time affection for Olga 
was rapidly merging into fierce jealousy for the girl who 
was out-stripping her in every point, even winning 
from her the palm of beauty that she had felt so 
securely her own. 

‘‘Olga is a very good girl,’ says Mrs. Stanhope icily. 
She must show this presuming child how wide a gulf 
lay between her son and the orphans she had taken 
in hand for sweet charity’s sake. “ Doubtless, my son 
was trying to interest Mr. Trowbridge in her. I heard 
Mrs. Trowbridge say that she intended to employ an 
assistant about the house this year, more for the sake 
of companionship than for any special need. Doubt- 
less Mr. Stanhope will secure the place for Olga.” 

“ Why, what on earth would you do without Ollie ? ” 
Virginia asks, completely aghast at the prospect of 
having the prop she had so long leaned on herself 
suddenly taken away. 


c 


STORM SHAKEN. 


205 


You will have to learn to take her place,” says 
Mrs. Stanhope, in her most imperative manner. You 
know I only took Olga to humor a childish whim of 
yours, and I can not but think I have done enough 
for her, and for you too, to entitle me to some gratitude 
on her part and some effort on yours.” 

“ Indeed ! indeed ! but you have,” says Virginia, 
sinking into a chair close by the blind woman, to cover 
her passive hand with kisses. 

“ Olga not in yet ? ” 

It was Eustis’s voice ringing with anxiety that broke 
in upon this pretty tableau. It was quite dark now, 
and if Olga had been there the lamps would have been 
lighted in every part of the house. 

“ Not in yet,” said Mrs. Stanhope. I’ve no doubt 
Mrs. Trowbridge will keep her all night. It is kind of 
you to be so concerned about her, though.” 

But there’s no certainty she is with Mrs. Trow- 
bridge. Virginia, will you hurry up supper while I tell 
Gus to saddle Prince again.” 

What are you going to do, Eustis ? ” Mrs. Stan- 
hope’s voice was sharp with resentment. 

I am going to look for Olga,” he said, then turned 
quickly on his heel and the two women heard him 
sending an imperative demand out toward the stable 
for Gus to saddle and bring his horse to him promptly. 

“You know, mother,” he said, coming back to the 
sitting-room, “that Olga is entirely too conscientious to 


2o6 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


stay away all night from you without sending a mes- 
sage of some sort. I could not sleep to-night without 
satisfying myself that no harm had come to her. I only 
marvel at your and Virginia’s indifference.” 

“As for me! ” says Virginia sulkily, “I’ve got confi- 
dence enough in Ollie to believe she knows how to 
keep out of the rain. There never was a girl who had 
her wits always about her more completely than Olga. 
There ! thank goodness! ” she started suddenly to her 
feet. 

“ For what? ” 

“ Don’t you hear Shep barking ? He was with her ! 
He’s barking for somebody to open the gate.” 

Eustis hurried out to the back gallery. Virginia 
followed him. They could hear the horse's feet slop- 
ping lazily along the rain-soaked road. It was a strangely 
slow gait for Olga to be coming at when it was so late 
that she must know they were all consumed with 
anxiety ! 

“ Ollie ! ” Virginia sent her voice out toward the gate 
where the sounds had come to*a stop. Some one was 
fumbling at the low-hung latch. No answer, only Shop’s 
impatient sharp bark ! Eustis sprang to the ground 
and reached the gate by a few impatient strides over 
the long wet grass. The rider was still fumbling nerv- 
ously with the latch. He could just see the dark mass 
made by the horse and its rider. 

“ Olga, is that you ? ” he asked in a sharp voice. 


STORM SHAKEN. 


207 


Yes, sir/’ The answer came to him in a slow soft 
voice, as if she had forced herself to make reply. 

“ Are you wet ? ” he asked, flinging wide the gate 
through which the horse passed briskly, of its own ac- 
cord, Shep barking joyously at his heels. She did 
not answer. Gus came promptly to take the horse. 
Eustis reached up his arms to take her from the 
saddle. She moaned and drew back. 

“ Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me, please ! ” 

But he seized her in his strong arms and placed her 
on the gallery by Ginia’s side. He felt her slight form 
quiver in his clasp. She pushed rapidly by Virginia 
and ran rather than walked into the hall, only to come 
to a dead halt in the middle of it, where a table stood 
and on it an unshaded lamp. She began pulling off her 
gauntlets slowly and laboriously, finger by finger, 
although they were loose enough to have been shaken 
off without an effort. Eustis and Virginia following 
her, were at a loss to account for her actions or her 
appearance. She was as white as the plastered walls 
of the hall. Every movement was as unlike Olga as 
was possible. That she had not been exposed to the 
storm was evident, for beyond the spattering of mud 
on the end of her long skirt, she was as neat and trim 
of attire as when she had left the house in her most 
joyous mood some hours before. Eustis’s mental con- 
clusion was that she had received a severe nervous 
shock during the terrific storm that had just spent itself. 


2o8 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


Her eyes were dropped to the gloves she was tugging 
at. The long dark lashes of her lids lay like silken 
fringe on her white cheeks. 

“Where are the turkey eggs, Ollie? Virginia asked, 
more as it were to break the girl’s strange silence than 
for any desire to know. 

Olga raised her eyes and looked into the laughing 
face before her. Its bright gayety seemed to hurt her. 
Her lips quivered for a second, then closed resolutely. 
No words came from them. 

“ Olga ! ” said Eustis, taking the riding whip from her 
trembling grasp and compelling her to look up at him 
as he laid a detaining hand on her shoulder, “ what is 
the matter with you, child ? You look as if something 
terrible had happened since you left the house.” 

“ Something terrible has happened,” said the girl 
slowly, “ but it is not any thing that concerns any body 
but myself.” Great tears stood in the soft eyes that were 
raised to Eustis’s face. For a moment he felt a mighty 
impulse to stoop and kiss them away. What if the 
lovely eyes did belong to his mother’s charity girl ? 
What if the girl standing there burdened with some 
strange grief that she was bravely striving to keep all 
to herself, was Olga nameless and “ set apart,” as his 
mother always mysteriously said of her. She was young 
and innocent and suffering. And so lovely in her 
grief. He spoke with infinite gentleness. 

“ What concerns you concerns your friends, little 


STORM SHAKEN. 


209 


Olga. Come, get her a cup of tea, Virginia, and then we 
will talk about this trouble, whatever it is, with mother.” 

Not to-night. Oh! not to-night, please.” 

Mrs. Stanhope’s patience was exhausted by this time. 
That Olga had returned and not come to report peni- 
tently to her immediately was very irritating in view 
of all that had gone before that evening. She called 
out querulously from the sitting-room, 

“ Olga I Is it your intention to keep the household 
waiting on you all night ? Have you not made your- 
self of importance enough for one occasion ? ” 

Olga glided into her presence, and kneeling down by 
her side said in a voice too low for any ear but Mrs. 
Stanhope’s : 

“ Be patient with me to-night, dear lady ! To-mor- 
row I will go away from you and never be of any 
importance to any one again. For oh ! Mrs. Stan- 
hope, I have found out who I am ! I know who my 
mother is I God help me, I know who and what I am ! 
Don’t tell them to-night. Don’t tell Ginia. To-mor- 
row I will be stronger. To-morrow I can bear it 
better.” 

For a moment she kneeled there clinging convulsively 
to the hand of the woman who had rescued her from 
an asylum to which, in the new misery that had come 
upon her, she looked back as upon a lost haven of rest 
and security. With the suddenness and the desolation 
of the storm that had just spent its fury on the earth, 


210 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


Olga’s life had been darkened, and the future spread 
out before her like a rugged thorn-strewn path leading 
by strange and devious ways — whitherward she did not 
know. 

Mrs. ‘Stanhope was completely bewildered at the 
turn events had taken ! Had she dared hope it possible, 
she would have wished that this knowledge could come 
to the girl through some agency other than herself. 
But now that it had come, and the innocent sufferer for 
the sins of others was bending and quivering under the 
blow like a storm-shaken reed, Eustis’s mother was 
pure womanly in her pity. She laid her hand on the 
girl’s bowed head : 

“ My poor child ! From my heart I pity you ! Go to 
your room now and to-morrow we will talk the matter 
over calmly.” 

“ Calmly ! ” Olga repeated the word with bitter 
emphasis as she rose obediently to her feet. Will it 
ever be possible for me to talk of it calmly ? ” Then 
with outstretched hands covering her face she sped 
quickly past Mrs. Stanhope, across the narrow hall and 
into her own room, which she locked against all intru- 
ders for the night, leaving Mrs. Stanhope relieved but 
pitiful, Virginia consumed with curiosity, and Eustis 
grieving for the grief that had shown so plainly in 
every line of the girl’s pure sweet face. For it was a 
face that Eustis loved. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


OLD DORA’S curse! 

T his is what had happened to Olga, shutting out the 
sunshine of peace and joy from her young heart 
so suddenly and so utterly that in her despair she 
called it — forever 1 

Riding blithely through the woods alone, her whole 
being expanding with a sense of physical refreshment, 
her heart expanded too in a burst of gratitude to the 
Author of so much loveliness and brightness and frag- 
rance. God was very good, and the world was very 
beautiful, and she was very happy ! That was all her 
creed. The strip of wood-land that lay between the 
Bendemmaand Hardlines plantations was Olga’s special 
delight. Here the pleasant fragrance of the sweet 
gum trees was strongest, and the showers of the dog- 
wood blossoms whitest ; and the low-growing may apple 
the thickest ; and the bright eyed squirrels most fearless 
in their lightsome gambols, and the birds in the branches 
overhead most rollicking in their carnival of song ; and 
here Olga loved best to give the rein to the gentle little 
animal she sat with such easy grace while, as she her- 


212 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


self expressed it to Ginia, “ She thought and thought 
and thought.” 

Such pure tender fancies fresh from a pure tender 
heart in which was no guile. Fancies into which were 
distilled all the fragrance and the brightness and the 
music that went to make up the glory of that May 
afternoon as Olga felt and saw it in the Bendemma 
woods. 

With a sense of utter freedom from restraint she 
rode along trying to mimic, in a girlish whistle, the 
swift changing notes of a mocking-bird that was 
announcing his connubial satisfaction in a newly ac- 
quired mate in the most ecstatic measures. She knew 
the road to Bendemma quite well, though, heretofore, 
she had only gone over it in the carriage with Mrs. 
Stanhope. She and quiet Mrs. Trowbridge were the 
best of friends, and she quite rejoiced to think that the 
days were getting so long now, that she could ride over 
any afternoon and back home before dark. Mrs. Trow- 
bridge “ knew so much ” and she was so willing to 
impart her useful knowledge for Olga’s benefit, and as 
fate seemed to be settling it for her, that she was to be 
Mrs. Stanhope’s housekeeper, she wanted to become a 
very good one indeed. She didn’t care in the least that 
the pony was pursuing rather a zig-zag route along the 
cool bridle-path, making erratic excursions to either side 
as the tempting shoots of sassafras or cane caught his 
big covetous eyes. From this leisurely progress she 


OLD DORA'S CURSE, 


213 


was startled by a clap of thunder that made the pony 
utter a terrified snort, then stand quivering with fright 
with his small ears pointed forward^ hushed the 
song of the birds to a startled twittering, as the 
little singers fluttered tremulously from limb to 
limb seeking the densest foliage, and made Olga herself 
tighten her hold upon the bridle apprehensively. 
Shut in by the tall forest trees from a view of the over- 
cast sky, she had not noticed the swift scudding storm- 
clouds, but now when the huge limbs began to sway 
and creak ominously about her and above her, she 
applied the whip vigorously to the pony’s flanks, bent 
on gaining the shelter of the first roof she could find. 

The first roof that came in sight belonged to old 
Dora’s cabin. It was brought suddenly into view as 
the pony cantered briskly from under the swaying and 
moaning branches of the trees. Nothing doubting of 
her welcome, Olga lifted the latch and rode swiftly up 
to the cabin door. The sound of a snarling contest 
between her own dog and Shep, who, by reason of being 
white folks’ dog, was rather arrogant in his demands 
for hospitality, brought old Dora hobbling slowly 
toward the entrance from the dark interior of the 
cabin, whose wooden shutters she had drawn close in 
anticipation of the fast-coming storm. 

‘‘Aunty!” said Olga, already out of the saddle and 
holding the restive pony by the bridle-rein, “ can I stay 
here with you until the storm is over ? ” 


214 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


Cert’n sho, little mistiss ! but how you gwine git 
yo’ saddle tuk’n off? Dar ain* nary blessed soul twix’ 
dis en de quarters ’cept me, and I ain’ no mo’ ’count 
den a dead womin sence I cotch col’ de odder day 
a-helpin’ Reube to sot out de sweet-tater slips, en I’se 
got sech a mis’ry in my back det seems lak I was ’bout 
to broke in two wid it. But folks can’t last f’rever ” — 

“ Oh ! I can manage about the saddle well enough,” 
says Olga, breaking in upon what promised to be an 
endless exposition of Dora’s ailments, “ if you’ll just 
hold the bridle for me, aunty, so the restless little 
rogue shan’t jump away from me when I get the saddle 
half off.” 

So Dora hobbled a little closer and took the bridle in 
hand, while Olga kneeled down on the gallery floor and 
tugged valiantly at the stubborn buckles and unyield- 
ing straps, and Shep sniffed around her reproaching her 
for so debasing herself, and the pony sighed impatiently 
for the freedom of Dora’s not very expansive grounds. 

“ There is nothing he can hurt, is there ? ” Olga 
asked of her hostess, as, with a whinny of delight and 
a defiant outward fling of a pair of very active hind 
legs, the pony careered madly around the little inclos- 
ure for a few moments before settling down to the more 
serious business of grazing on the scattered tufts 
of wiry crab-grass that had, by a miracle of vitality, 
survived the trampling of many feet in Dora’s yard. 

“ He’s welcome t’all he kin git out’n dat yard,” says 


OLD DORA'S CURSE. 


215 


Dora, with large liberality, as she turned to lead the 
way back into the cabin. Olga followed her, dragging 
the saddle safely out of reach of the big rain-drops 
that were already falling fast and thick. Dusting the 
best chair in the cabin carefully with her apron, Dora 
offered it to her guest with old-time courtesy. 

“ Take a seat en sot down, missy. Ain’ good ’nough 
for de likes uv you, but it’s de bes’ I’se got now. It’s 
at yo’ service. I don’ see de quality folks now, sence 
I done got ole en cripple up lik’ wid de mis’ry in my 
back, but I use to live wid w’ite folks. W’ite folks 
use t’ think mo’ uv ole Dora den dey do dese days. I 
knows w’at de quality is like. I ain’ forgot ev’y thing 
I eva knowed. No ma’am, I ain’t dat.” 

Olga located the chair close by the cabin door. It 
was dark and uninviting inside ! Squalid in its poverty, 
untidy in its keeping. Great strings of red peppers 
and dried okra and parti-colored pop-corn ornamented 
the smoked rafters ! Bunches of broom corn and dusty 
wood- cuts from pictorial papers covered the rough 
white-washed .walls ; a rickety table piled high with the 
unwashed dishes of several meals, leaned helplessly 
against the wall; a dull fire slumbered in the big 
hearth ; there was nothing pleasing to distract atten- 
tion from the storm without. On the unceiled roof 
the heavy rain fell loudly and harshly. It was a shel- 
ter from the storm, but nothing more. Olga felt sorry 
for human beings condemned to spend all their days 


2i6 without blemish. 

in such an unlovely atmosphere. She turned her 
pitying eyes on the shriveled face of her hostess. 
“You don’t live here all by yourself, aunty ? ” 

“ No ! I’se got folks,’’ says Dora proudly. “ My ole 
man Reubin, he’s plantin’ in de gin-slough fiel’ disyear, 
an’ he’s got a ve’y good squad, he is ! En my gal Rose 
she’s turned in t’ help him out wid de cuttin’ uv de 
crops out t’ a stan’. But Rose ain’ no fiel’ hand. Rose 
never wos no fiel’ han’. I ’spec’ dey done stop in out’n 
de rain at de gin. It’s too fur t’ git home. Does you 
live anywhere dost ’bout here, honey ? Seems lak I 
can’t jus’ zackly place you. My mem’ry narves ain’ 
in good workin’ order,” 

“ I live at the Hardlines plantation when I am on 
this side of the river,” says Olga, too accustomed to 
the simple curiosity of the whole negro race to resent 
the catechising she knew Dora was preparing for 
her. 

“ An’ whar at w’en you’s on tudder side, honey ? ” 

“ At stanhope Hall, over in Mississippi.” 

“ You know ole lady Stanhope ?” 

“ Oh, yes, I live with her.” 

“ An’ Mr. Eustis ?” 

“ Oh ! yes.” 

“You ain’ no kin to ’em doa, is you? I done know 
all ’bout de Hardlines w’ite folks mos’ as good as I 
know my own w’ite folks, en seems lak I hear ole Miss 
Stanhope did’n’ have nothin’ lef’ but dat boy o’ hern. 


OLD DORA'S CURSE. 


217 


Eustis. How de ole lady stan’ de w’ar and t’ar er time 
enny way ? How she lookin’? ” 

“ She is looking very well,” says Olga, “ she is very 
handsome I think, aunty.” 

“ An’ Miss Denton ? you know Miss Denton ? she’s 
aunt to my w’ite folks down yon’ at Bendemma, de 
Trowbridges.” 

“Yes, I know Miss Denton, too,” says Olga leni- 
ently smiling on the eager questioner, to whom these 
bald items furnished such rich entertainment. 

“ Den,” says old Dora, coming a little closer and 
leaning heavily on her stick, while she placidly exam- 
ined the texture of Olga’s riding skirt over her spec- 
tacles, “ ef you knows Miss Denton, I ’lows you knows 
my gal Rose too. My gal Rose, she’s been doin’ fur 
Miss Denton ’bout de house. Rose ain’ no fiel’ han’, 
she never was. My gal Rose was cut out for a leddy.” 

Olga admitted that she knew Miss Denton’s Rose. 

“W’at’s yo’ entitle, honey?” Dora asked, placidly 
extending one hand to feel the texture of her habit. 

“ My name is Olga.” The young girl grew restive 
under this prolonged questioning, and gathering her 
long skirt under her arm, she stepped out on the gal- 
lery and walked to its northern end to see what was 
the prospect for clearing up. The rain still poured piti- 
lessly. When she came back, Dora had drawn a short 
dingy bench close up to the chair she had been sitting 
in and was now sending volumes of smoke roof-ward 


2i8 


WITHOUT BLEMISH, 


from a stubby pipe over whose stem she mumbled 
a question she had in readiness. 

Was you borned over t’ Stanhope Hall, honey ?’* 

» No.” 

“ Mebbe at Hardlines, den.” 

“ I was born in Cleveland,” says Olga desperately, 
hoping by settling the point of her nativity to escape 
further catechising. But no sooner did the word 
Cleveland fall on Dora’s ears than it produced a startling 
effect. It was as if she had been suddenly shaken into 
mental activity. Her black eyes twinkled ominously. 

‘‘Cleveland,” she muttered, “Cleveland! whar’s 
Cleveland, honey ? ” Then, without waiting for any 
answer. “ Cleveland 1 Dat’s the ve’y place whar my 
gal Rose done tuk an leff’ her little gal in de ’sylum ! 
An’ bless de lam’, it’s all cornin’ as cl’ar to my vishun e^ 
Jacob’s ladder were t’ him ! Dat’s de ve’y place whar she 
done tol’ me old lady Stanhope tuk en tuk her gal en 
made a lady uv her, en fotch her down here t’ live ! 
She did, ’fore de lam’ ! an’ here’s me bin sittin’ here all 
dis time right ’long side uv my gal Rose’s gal an did’n 
have no better sense.” Dora leaned back on her bench 
and laughed in an imbecile fashion. 

Olga looked at her in affright I What was it that this 
hideous old crone was saying ? why was the old creat- 
ure leering at her and chuckling to herself in that sense- 
less fashion ? She felt every drop of blood forsaking 
her cheeks and settling as it seemed in a full choking 


OLD DORA'S CURSE. 


219 


flood about her heart. What had she to do with this 
old hag’s daughter’s daughter? What was it to her 
that she had been in a Cleveland asylum ? What was it 
to her that she knew nothing of her father and mother? 
How dared any one say that the same blood mingled 
in her veins and in the veins of that withered negress, 
laughing in imbecile enjoyment of her own supposed 
discovery! But deeper than her indignation, more pro- 
found than her disgust, was the under-current of the 
sickening possibility that it might be true! Her teeth 
chattered so that she could not frame the wild protest 
in her heart into words, words that she wanted to hurl 
at this old hag’s head to crush her with her wrath. 
She shivered as with cold. 

“ Let granny stir up de fire, honey. You’s rale col’. 
I sees de shivers passin’ over you. Sho’ you is got yo’ 
daddy’s eyes!” 

“ Don’t call yourself granny to me ! ” Olga cried, 
finding voice at last. “ How dare you speak so to me ? 
I’m not your daughter’s daughter ! I’m not ! I’m not ! 
I’m not ! You are a wicked crazy old negro woman 
and you don’t know what you are saying! You are 
crazy, just as crazy as you can be, and Mr. Trowbridge 
ought to have you shut up ! You are a wicked old 
woman ! I’ll try to be sorry for you and to forgive 
you when I get over my angry feelings, but I don’t 
feel sorry for you now, no, not one bit. I wish I hadn’t 
asked for shelter from the rain. I didn’t know a crazy 


220 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


woman lived here or I wouldn’t. Don’t look at me. 
Don’t dare speak to me again ! ” 

She had not meant to excite the old woman’s wrath ! 
She had not meant any thing, connectedly. She had 
simply let fall from her quivering lips the only words 
that seemed in any measure to meet the emergency. 
But Dora rose to the full extent of her towering form, 
and raising her long muscular arms far above her tur- 
baned head (from out which a multitude of tightly 
plaited and twine wrapped tufts of grizzled hair pro- 
truded like snake-heads) clasped her palsied hands 
about each other and cried shrilly in a voice quavering 
with passion : 

De God uv Ab’m, Isik en Jacob punish her ! De God 
dat visits de onnatural, en de wicked, en de thankliss 
chile, punish her ! De Master, w’at made de b’ars, de 
she b’ars, consume de sinful chill’n uv old, punish 
her ! Po’ down de vials uv wrath on her ! ” 

The fierce earnestness of this imprecation rescued it 
from every touch of the ludicrous ! The hands that had 
been upraised in cursing, fell nervelessly to her sides. 
Old Dora sank slowly upon the bench and fastened her 
blood-shotten eyes on the pallid face of the girl before 
her. A fierce flash of lightning blazed into every 
crevice of the dark cabin, followed closely by an awful 
peal of thunder that shook the very foundations of the 
house. The dogs lifted up their voices in a dismal 
duet ! It was as if all the powers of evil had been 


OLD DORANS CURSE, 


221 


turned loose to crush one helpless child ! Olga shud- 
dered and clasped her hands over her face more to shut 
out the baleful glitter of the eyes so close to her own, 
than in fear of the blinding lightning that rent the 
black clouds in twain every second or two. Old Dora’s 
voice was raised to drown the uproar of the storm : 

“ I’se got mo’ ways uv settlin’ wid folks den one ! 
You’ll ’member dese words uv mine ’fo ’ you many 
days older ! I ’lows my Rose is got a right t’ her own 
chile, en ef she’s too big a fool to stan’ up fur her own 
rights, I’se got to stan’ up fur her, dat’s all. You may 
fight ag’in it es much es you please. En ders udders 
dat’ll fight ag’in it, too. But I’se got mo’ ways uv set- 
tlin’ wid folks den one ! W’en de piller, under yo’ sassy 
head won’ let sleep come a-nigh you ! w’en de vittles 
dat you swallers, sickin’s en chokes you ! w’en de flesh 
draps from yo’ bones en yo’ days is days uv weariness ! 
w’en ev’y thing you loves turns t’ hatin uv you ! w’en 
de flowers dat you plants turns t’ thorns en pricks yo’ 
fingers! w’en de sun turns black befo’you eyes en ders 
blood upon de moon ! w’en de storm-rack hides de star- 
light from you ! w’en de screech-owl perchis on yo’ win- 
dow sill, en laughs because you’s cryin’ 1 w’en yo’ eye- 
lids drop wid heaviness en yo’ feet ’fuses to carry you 
’long ! don’t say ole Dora conjure you, only ’member 
w’at she say t’ you in dis hour w’en ’you deny de 
mammy dat bore de pains uv chile-bed fur you ! Dora’s 
got mo’ ways of settlin’ wid folks den one,” 


222 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


She stopped speaking ! The sound of her slow 
labored breathing mingled with the sighing of the wind 
and the pelting of the rain on the unceiled roof and the 
muttering of the thunder that was rolling further and 
further off on its mission of terror and destruction. The 
storm seemed to Olga’s fancy part and parcel of a hide- 
ous dream that she was in bondage to. She would 
wake up presently, and ride back home to Hardlines, 
through the bright sweet woods that she had passed 
over so blithely a little while ago ! The sun would 
shine again, and the birds would sing, and the dog-wood 
would shed its snowy petals on her head again, as she 
shook the low hanging branches with her riding whip, 
and the squirrels would scamper before her, and she 
would whistle back at the mocking birds and for- 
get all about this strange old hag and her hideous 
story ! 

But when, after awhile, the rain ceased falling and 
the tired winds fell asleep in the tree tops, and the 
voice of the thunder was silenced, she stole from the 
cabin, and buckling the saddle on once more with cold 
trembling fingers, she mounted and rode away from 
the cabin without a word or look for the old woman 
who, her wrath spent, now cowered in terror of Rose’s 
dire malediction when she should discover what had 
been done. There was no sunshine to gild her back- 
ward ride through the somber woods ! The dog-wood 
blossoms lay soile3 and spent before the pitiless blast ! 


OLD DORA'S CURSE. 


223 


The birds cowered chilled and voiceless in their storm- 
beaten coverts ! Frogs croaked from the swollen ponds ! 
Myriad bats low-flying flapped their wings heavily 
near her cold white cheeks ! The hoot of a distant owl 
sounded dismally close in the silent air ! All things 
bright and fair and sweet had faded as if touched by 
the hand of an evil Magi ! And old Dora’s was the 
blighting touch. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


COMFORTED. 


HEN Olga came out of her room the next morn- 



VV ing she closed the door softly after her, as one 
does who comes out from the presence of the dead, 
and stood motionless quite a while, with her hand rest- 
ing on the knob of it. She knew it was late, and she 
felt grateful to Mrs. Stanhope for leaving her undis- 
turbed so long. Virginia had sent a smothered sum- 
mons to breakfast through the closed door ever so 
long ago, but she had felt privileged for this once to 
indulge herself to the utmost, and had disregarded the 
voice. Sorrow has its prerogatives, and grief is pardon- 
able for its egotism. The house was very still. It 
was as if all things lay quiet from exhaustion after the 
uproar and the destruction of the day before. The 
sun was smiling radiantly down upon the desolated 
fields of corn and cotton which had been the pride and 
boast of the place just twenty-four short hours ago. 
How heartless it looked! She could see, through the 
open front door, panels of fencing lying prone 1 And 
over yonder, where the woods crowded close upon the 
cultivated land, wide spaces, where the dazzling blue 
sky shone instead of the bosky green of crowded trees, 


COMFORTED. 


225 


showed how fiercely the storm-king had worked his 
will in that direction. 

The birds, those true philosophers who live for the 
present only, warbled joyously from every tree branch, 
forgetful of the past terrors that had sent them cower- 
ing to their leafy coverts, careless of future possibilities, 
reveling in the consciousness that the Now was alto- 
gether good and bright. How heartless they sounded ! 
The sitting-room door, just opposite to where she 
stood, spell-bound and irresolute, was closed ; but she 
could hear the droning, monotonous tones of Ginia’s 
voice, as she read aloud to Mrs. Stanhope, with no 
pause, no interruptions for breath or comment. Things 
were going on beyond that closed door just as usual! 
Perhaps they had missed her a trifle at the breakfast- 
table, where she usually presided at the tea-tray, but 
who was thinking of her dead that lay behind her in the 
room she had just closed ? Her dead youth ? her dead 
innocence ? her dead hopes ? She had put them all away 
from her, with tears and moans that had broken over her 
and shaken her as the storm had broken over and shaken 
old Dora’s cabin. She seemed to feel herself a new- 
born child of that storm. All the old conditions of 
her life were done away with forever. How strange 
it all seemed ! She could see Eustis pacing moodily 
up and down the long front gallery, with his hat drawn 
well down over his brow and his hands clasped behind 
him. Doubtless he was thinking of his despoiled 


226 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


fields and his marred prospects ! Doubtless he regarded 
himself as a very unfortunate creature, and really felt 
wrecked as he looked out on the corn, lashed into rib- 
bons, and the promising cotton crop wiped entirely 
from existence. His troubles excited a wan smile of 
pity. She looked down upon him from the supreme 
altitude of her greater woe ! How insignificant it all 
seemed ! Shep, clumsy, affectionate, loyal, bounding 
up the front steps with a view of paying his respects 
to his master, caught a glimpse of Olga at the far end 
of the hall, and, with a joyous bark, swerved from 
Eustis’s outstretched hand, scampering through the 
hall with muddy, shaggy feet to seek the caresses he 
loved best on earth. Eustis glanced up ! How pale 
the child looked ! He followed Shep’s lead, and went 
in to her. Something had troubled her. He did not 
know what, but he wanted her to understand that he 
did not regard her as simply a convenience in his 
mother’s house. He held out his hand, saying kindly: 
“ Well, my little girl ! ” 

Olga did not notice the extended hand. Her 
troubled eyes rested on his face for a fleet second, 
then she stooped to caress Shep with eager hands. 
Shep would never know any difference ! “ I am so 

sorry about your crop,” she said, with a smile more 
pitiful than tears, then brushed hastily past him and 
went in where Ginia was still reading aloud to Mrs. 
Stanhope, 


COMFORTED. 


227 


Eustis stood for a second where she had left him, 
puzzling over her strange conduct. Her usual gentle 
courtesy had given place to abrupt discourtesy. The 
serenity of her countenance, which was its greatest 
charm, was broken up into stormy unrest. Whatever 
had happened to the girl, it must be of a very serious 
nature, and it was his duty to inquire further into it. 
As long as she remained with his mother, she was vir- 
tually under his protection. The door of the sitting- 
room opened abruptly and closed harshly. Virginia 
had come out from it, and now crossed the hall with a 
very petulant look on her pretty face. Her curiosity 
was piqued and foiled. “ What is the matter with 
Olga, Virginia? ” Eustis asked abruptly, as she was 
sweeping past him. 

“ I haven’t the remotest idea. Whatever it is, she’s 
determined to make a very imposing mystery out of 
it.” 

Eustis turned on his heel and walked back toward 
the gallery. There were no crops to ride over this 
morning. Shep placed himself at his heels, and man 
and dog soberly paced the long gallery to and fro. 

Something strange had happened to Olga at the 
moment of her entering the sitting-room, where Vir- 
ginia was reading a chapter from the New Testament, to 
their benefactress, as she did every morning. She 
would wait until the chapter was finished, and then ask 
Ginia to leave her alone with Mrs. Stanhope. These 


228 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


were the words that came to her as she stopped quietly 
just behind the old lady’s chair : — My peace I give unto 
you : not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let 
not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” 
It was not the end of the chapter. Ginia’s voice droned 
on through four more verses, but Olga heard no more. 

Those words alone abode with her. It was as if a 
heavenly messenger had descended to bring them to 
her for her solace and comfort, in this the hour of her 
sore need. Involuntarily she raised her down-cast 
head. With Christ on her side, why should she fear 
what man could do unto her ! How sweet and strong 
and self-poised she looked, standing there waiting for 
the reading to come to an end ! 

“ Isn’t Olga here^? ” Mrs. Stanhope asked almost 
before the book was closed. Olga answered for her- 
self. 

“Yes, ma’am; and I am going to ask Ginia to go 
away and let me talk with you alone.” 

“Go, Virginia,” was all Mrs. Stanhope said, and it 
was this curt dismissal that clouded Ginia’s bright face. 
She was used to such extraordinary consideration 
from Mrs. Stanhope, who had to-day been positively 
affectionate toward her, that she was in a fair way to 
become exacting. 

[If Virginia had known that Mrs. Stanhope’s access 
of warmth was due to the fact, that, in her relief at 
knowing that Olga had learned, without any breach of 


COMFORTED. 


229 


confidence on her own part, what she so much desired 
her to know, she would have felt less flattered by it.] 

Mrs. Stanhope held herself in readiness now to 
receive Olga’s communication with mingled feelings of 
relief and regret. The girl was forever out of Eustis’s 
way at last, and, although she had never for long enter- 
tained the idea that a Stanhope could so far forget 
himself as to fall in love with a nameless charity 
girl, she had felt Olga’s beauty and refinement to be a 
snare to her boy’s feet. Now she could still avail her- 
self of the girl’s usefulness without fearing her charms. 
Let Eustis once know that a drop of tainted blood 
throbbed under Olga’s pure olive skin, and an impass- 
able gulf was fixed between them forever. And yet 
she was not without womanly pity for this innocent 
sufferer for the sins of others. Let her who is without 
selfishness among you, cast the first stone. 

Olga took possession of th^ hassock vacated by Vir- 
ginia, and went to the point with simple directness. 
Directness was one of her most fixed attributes. She 
was incapable of circumlocution in any matter. 

“ Mrs. Stanhope, when you took me out of the asy- 
lum at Cleveland, did you have any idea at all about 
my parentage ? ” 

Mrs. Stanhope answered with an evasiveness that 
was in strong contrast to the child’s directness. 

“ Your parentage ? Well, no, my poor Olga, that — 
is — not exactly.” 


230 


WITHOUT BLEMISH, 


“ I don’t understand you, Mrs. Stanhope.” 

The calm superiority of her voice and manner nettled 
Mrs. Stanhope unaccountably. She shifted her position 
in the arm-chair uneasfly. 

“ I certainly had reason to suppose,” she said 
cruelly, “ that your blood was not of the purest,” then, 
hastily defending herself, where no charge was brought, 
“ but I have kept my promise to the letter. I have 
kept it in spite of every thing.” 

“What promise, Mrs. Stanhope? Who did you 
promise, and what ? ” 

Olga leaned forward on the hassock with an eager 
light in her mournful eyes. How much more of her life’s 
mystery might be stored away in that impassive breast. 
Perhaps the revelation of a father might be added to 
the revelation of a mother ! Did the future hold any 
greater shame for her ? 

“ My promise to Amelia Dana,” said Mrs. Stanhope, 
rather shocked to find herself actually standing on the 
defensive with Olga. “ She extracted a foolish promise 
from me that I would never let you know there w'as 
any difference between you and Virginia.” 

“ Why was it a foolish promise ? I remember Mrs. 
Dana. She was the lady with white hair and blue eyes 
that always made me think of the angels. She did 
not see any difference. What does the difference 
really consist in, Mrs. Stanhope?” 

“ It was a foolish promise,” said Mrs. Stanhope, pur- 


COMFORTED, 


231 


suing her own line of thought, ‘^because you might 
then have grown up expecting things — to — ” she hesi- 
tated, then concluded imperatively, “ but I have 
allowed you to catechise me sufficiently. Tell me 
what you have learned, child, and then I shall be able 
the better to advise you.” 

So Olga told her, substantially, all that had passed 
in old Dora’s cabin. Her voice from being low and 
intense, as if she were with an effort keeping herself 
well in hand, culminated in a sudden piercing plea as 
she sank on the floor by Mrs. Stanhope’s chair, in an 
attitude of prayer. 

“Tell me that she lied! oh! tell me that I am not 
the daughter of that poor slattern whom I found asleep 
in the woods that day ! Tell me that there’s not a word 
of truth in it, and how my soul will bless you ! Oh ! it 
will kill me ! ” 

Her voice died away in passionate sobs, she sank 
still lower on the floor until her head rested on the has- 
sock at the lady’s feet. Mrs. Stanhope leaned over and 
guided by her moans laid a pitying hand on the bowed 
head : 

“ My poor little Olga. Poor innocent sufferer.” 

“ Then it is true ? ” Olga had hushed her sobs at the 
first word. 

“ I am afraid it is. Poor child, poor child.” 

“ But you should know whether it is true, and if it is 
true, Mrs. Stanhope, you should have left me where it’s 


232 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


being true would not have been enough to blight my 
whole life. I will not, I will not take the simple word 
of an imbecile old negress and let it fasten eternal dis- 
grace on me.” 

When she was humble and abased Mrs. Stanhope 
pitied her, when her voice rang out so defiantly, the 
lady feared her. 

“ Calm yourself, Olga,” she said, in her coldest voice, 
“ there is scarcely any room for hope for you. 
There is too much circumstantial evidence as to your 
parentage for me to be able to doubt old Dora’s word. 
This must have come like a terrible shock to you. 
I am very sorry for you and I am disposed to 
ameliorate matters for you as far as I possibly can. 
I shall always feel most kindly toward you. It is 
not necessary that this revelation should make any 
difference between you and me. I have known it, sub- 
stantially, all along. I had purposed, on your eight- 
eeenth birth-day, to offer you a permanent position as 
my paid housekeeper. I still offer you that position, 
though of course in view of old Dora’s having allowed 
her tongue to wag, you are liable to be the subject of 
much covert gossip. I don’t think the woman Rose is 
likely to annoy you — ” 

“ Is the woman Rose my mother, do you think, Mrs. 
Stanhope ? ” Olga asked in a slow quiet way. 

‘‘ I think there is hardly any doubt about it, child.” 

‘‘Then,” said Olga, getting up from her crouching 


COMFORTED, 


233 


attitude, “ it is hardly worth while for us to talk about 
plans, Mrs. Stanhope. I must think it out by myself. 
You will let me stay here until I can think up some 
plan, will you not, ma’am ? I don’t mean to stay as I have 
been, you know. Not to sit at the table with you and 
Mr. Eustis and Ginia, I mean just to shelter myself in 
the little back gallery room until my head gets clear 
enough forme to form a plan of some sort, that is — until 
I can think out my duty. I want to do just what I 
ought to do — for — every body’s sake.” Then the unnat- 
ural calm of face and voice broke up tempestuously 
once more, and with hands clasped over her streaming 
eyes she moaned again and again : “ Why did you not 
leave me where I was? why, oh ! why?” 

“Olga,” said Mrs. Stanhope sternly, “are you going 
to reproach me for the trouble that has come upon 
you ? Reproach me after I have spent so many years 
preparing you to cope with life, better than you could 
ever have done when the asylum had done its best for 
you by putting you out at service? ” 

“ Forgive me, dear Mrs Stanhope, it is so hard to be 
just to others when trouble goes over us like remorse- 
less billows. I will come back to you when I know 
better what to say about my future.” 

Then, like some sorely wounded thing, she went 
slowly out from Mrs. Stanhope’s presence and regained 
her own room, thankful that she encountered no one 
in the transit. 


234 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


Shut in by herself she lost all consciousness of the 
lapse of time. Who was attending to her accustomed 
duties she neither knew, nor cared to know. She had 
stepped entirely out of the sphere of her old life, from 
the moment she had found it impossible to doubt that 
Dora had spoken the truth. The one thought now 
was to go very far away from them all, where no one 
would have the right to look at her pityingly. As 
immovable as a statue she sat on the side of the bed 
while the morning wore its way toward noon. She 
knew when twelve o’clock came by the ringing of the 
big bell in the quarter lot. She knew when two o’clock 
came by the ringing of the smaller house bell for din- 
ner. A knock came to her door, such an imperative 
one, that she was obliged to show herself in response 
to it. Ginia stood there with a tray of food. She 
glanced with more curiosity than pity at Olga’s swol- 
len eyes. 

“ Mr. Eustis says you are to eat this, or he will be 
seriously angry.” Olga reached out her hand for the 
tray obediently, drew it into the room and once more 
locked the door. Later on she heard the creaking 
sound of the hammock on the back gallery, one of its 
staples was fastened into the door-post of the room she 
sat in. She knew that Eustis was smoking his after 
dinner cigar out there. Presently the sound of some- 
body stamping mud off his feet, then scraping them on 
the hoe-blade that was nailed to the top step for the 


COMFORTED. 


235 


purpose, came to her in her self-absorption. That was 
Mr. Trowbridge’s voice clear and loud : 

“ Rode over to see how badly the storm had used you 
up. Pretty rough on you, my boy.” 

“ It has ruined me ! ” she heard Eustis say in answer, 
and she smiled bitterly at his childish exaggeration. 

Their voices came to her with distinctness through 
the unceiled walls of the gallery room. What they 
said was of no manner of interest to her ; their speech 
ran on conveying nothing to her but a sense of sound, 
until one name started prominently from the flow of 
Mr. Trowbridge’s talk — “Dora!” she heard him say, 
and then Eustis, in a voice that sounded shocked and 
surprised, “ Not old Dora, Rose’s mother? ” 

What were they talking about, those two men out 
there, bringing in the names that held such baleful 
significance for her ? She strained her ears to catch 
the next words : “ There is scarcely a doubt the poor 
old thing must have died from the effects of fright at 
the storm. There was no sign of her having been 
struck by lightning, nothing burned about her, or the 
house, but she was entirely alone in the storm, and 
from the position and general appearance of the body 
she must have died in extreme agony.” 

Mr. Trowbridge told the story in a voice of perfect 
indifference. Suddenly Olga’s door opened and she 
stood before the two men as white as a wraith. 

“ Is old Dora, that lives in your woods, close there 


236 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


by the gin, dead, Mr. Trowbridge?” she asked, with no 
word of greeting or apology for her intrusion. 

Waring Trowbridge glanced at her in that restless 
way that always overtook him when Olga was the ob- 
ject in view. 

Yes, child, yes,” he said quickly, “ but what’s come 
to you, Olga ? Mrs. Trowbridge says she’s had a lot of 
turkey eggs waiting for you for an age.” 

“ Wasn’t she there yesterday ? ” Eustis asked, glanc- 
ing in surprise from Olga’s agitated face to Mr. Trow- 
bridge’s. 

‘‘Not that I know of,” said Mr. Trowbridge, “were 
you, Olga ? ” 

But there was no visible Olga to hear or answer the 
question. She had disappeared as suddenly as she 
appeared, and was even then, poor little thing, hyster- 
ically congratulating herself that Dora, the one living 
witness to her disgrace (as she worded it), was suddenly 
and forever silenced. Who knew, perhaps now, she 
would be able to keep her terrible secret all to herself? 

While outside Eustis was wonderingly and angrily 
revolving in his own mind the question : If Olga was 
not at Bendemma in the storm, where was she ? fiercely 
resolving that the question should be answered by her 
own lips before she slept that night. 

Not for long did Olga entertain the evil joy that 
filled her storm-tossed soul at the prospect of conceal-, 
ment afforded by Dora’s death. The lessons she had 


COMFORTED. 


237 


learned in the old asylum days, lessons of truth and 
honor, had sunk deep into the receptive soil of her 
ardent nature. She kneeled down by the bed-side and 
prayed to be forgiven for her unhallowed rejoicing over 
the death of old Dora. She kneeled still, long after her 
murmured prayer had died from lips and heart. Once 
again the words she had heard in the morning made 
themselves audible to her waiting soul : “ My peace I 
give unto thee," and again : “ Let not your heart be 
troubled, neither let it be afraid," and she was com- 
forted. 


CHAPTER XX. 


THE GULF FIXED. 

O LGA crept stealthily from her room that evening 
when she knew the family was gathered around 
the early tea-table, and stepping^ off the low gallery, 
found herself in the garden that skirted one side of the 
house. She wanted to walk down to the river-bank to 
get a breath of fresh air. She felt as if the atmosphere 
of the gallery room was thickened by her own tears and 
groans. She would not go through the hall to the 
front door. The sound of her foot-fall upon the hard 
oil-cloth that covered it, might betray her, and she 
would either be importuned by Ginia, or commanded 
by Mrs. Stanhope to take her place at the table. The 
lamp-light, from the dining-room, fell across the path 
she must take to reach the front gate. How comfort- 
able and happy they all looked in there together ! She 
could nQt see Eustis’s face, for he sat with his back to 
her, but Virginia, behind the tea-tray there, in poor 
Ollie’s own place, how pretty she looked in her blue 
muslin and tiny white apron ! Flushed and a trifle nerv- 
ous over her new responsibility of pouring out the tea 


THE GULF FIXED. 


239 


for the family, she sent little appealing glances for 
leniency across the table from a pair of the most 
dove-like eyes imaginable. Mr. Trowbridge had 
remained for supper, and must be entertaining them in 
his liveliest fashion, for even Mrs. Stanhope’s some- 
what austere features were wreathed in complacent 
smiles. Olga passed swiftly across the band of light 
that gave them to her vision. Could she look so happy 
and forgetful if ruin had just overtaken them ? she asked 
herself bitterly, as she almost ran out of sight, fearful of 
uttering her moans audibly. As the iron latch of the 
front gate fell from her hand with a loud click, Shep, 
with the impetuosity of a belated tornado, swept 
through the open hallway a'nd with a reproachful yelp 
bounded over the low-plank fence and followed in swift 
pursuit. As he reached her side, he touched her hand 
with his cold but friendly nose, then sobering his 
exuberant vitality to accord with her evident dejection, 
walked sedately on by her side, his huge paws 
making distinct impressions in the smooth sandy 
road that had been beaten into compact hardness by 
the storm of yesterday. Olga reached out a hand of 
welcoming to her shaggy comforter, and with it resting 
on his curly head walked silently on toward the river. 
She was thankful that the story of her parentage would 
never turn Shep’s devotion into contempt, or make 
him the less eager to be her companion in walk or 
ride, “ But they will take you away from me, old 


240 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


friend,” she said aloud, “when they go one way and I 
the other,” and Shep answered with a loud clear bark 
that might mean gratitude for tardy notice taken, or 
might be his way of offering consolation. Who will 
presume to say ? The road they were traveling was the 
wagon road that led through the cotton fields from the 
gin-house to the landing, where the steam-boats 
stopped to take on cotton or put off plantation supplies. 
There was no attraction in it at all. On either hand 
stretched the storm-ravished fields with which Olga 
felt herself in such close sympathy. Yesterday they 
were full of promise and young hope ; to-day bare and 
desolate! The same storm had desolated her life and 
their promise ! But at the end of this walk she would 
find the river. The great muddy resistless Mississippi 
River, rushing by on its mission to the sea. One of 
the few pastimes she and Virginia always enjoyed 
when they came over from the Hall in the hills was 
their rambles on the river bank picking up such articles 
of flotsam and jetsam as the rushing current left within 
their reach. But that was when the river was low and the 
flat sandy safe beach ran far out under the treacherous 
upper banks. The river was rising now, and only three 
feet of bluff bank was between her and the dark waters 
as she stood upon the brink with Shep motionless by her 
side. Great masses of drift-wood floated swiftly down 
stream. The long bodies of dead trees, black and 
unlovely, sped-by with the noiselessness of spirits of the 


THE GULF FIXED. 


241 


dark, hastening to their ocean caves. It was a somber 
outlook ! No sign of the habitation of man, unless she 
should turn her gaze land-ward and look for it in points 
of light glimmering at far spaces apart, showing where 
the scattered negro cabins were located. But Olga did 
not turn her gaze land-ward, poor child, it was turned 
inward, so resolutely that she saw without seeing the 
tree-clothed banks opposite to her, where the thick 
crowding willows and cotton-woods growing down to 
the very water’s edge, showed now in the dim light of 
the gloaming a black and formless mass against the cold 
gray sky. A ponderous sigh smote on her ears, followed 
by another and yet another in rhythmic succession. 
It was as if a giant, weary of toil, was slowly wending 
his way up the river. Such sighs could only come from 
giant lungs. Olga shifted her listless attitude slightly at 
sound of them. There was something beside the muddy 
waters and the swift running drift-wood to watch; 
she turned her eyes toward the direction of the sound. 
A black volume of smoke was curling far above her 
head. It was the giant’s breath. She would wait for 
him. A long line of barges crept slowly into view 
around the bend of the river, four abreast, clumsy, 
awkward, lashed together in their helplessness, empty, 
with no vital force of their own, propelled by the sigh- 
ing tired giant, a black-browed tow-boat. It gave her 
temporary interest outside of herself. Shep uttered a 
note of invitation, and skirmished around in the gloam- 


242 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


ing for a stick of proper dimensions. It was an under- 
stood thing when he and Olga found themselves on 
the river bank when a boat passed, that she should send 
a stick into the swell that followed in its wake, and he 
was to fetch it to her with pride in his own seaworthi- 
ness. But to-night things were not as usual. Indeed, 
if Shep had paused to think he would have recalled 
that this was the first time he and Olga had ever visited 
the river bank at that unpropitious hour. 

“ No, boy, no, it is dark and the current runs swift,” 
she said, taking the stick from his jaws, and sending it 
far land-ward. The tow-boat sighed and puffed its way 
onward ; now it was where she could see its furnace 
fires, glowing like red and angry eyes from out the 
rushing waters; now it was abreast of her, and she 
could hear the voices of her crew, and see the men 
moving about on top the empty barges ! now it had 
passed her post of observation, and steamed slowly 
around the next bend in the river, sending its long 
swelling-waves sullenly surging against the bank where 
the lonely girl stood silhouetted against the gray sky. 
A splash ! and Olga knew* that a small portion of the 
bank, loosened by the swell from the barges, had slipped 
into the river. Then she remembered that the people 
on the place had had a good deal to say lately about 
the caving of the banks. She remembered that she 
had heard Eustis say to his mother yesterday at 
breakfast, (how far away in the past that yesterday 


THE GULF FIXED, 


243 


seemed !) that he was almost afraid to stack his cotton- 
seed on the bank, for fear it would cave in before the 
boats should stop for it. And yet, there it was, just 
behind her, hundreds and hundreds of sacks piled 
up in long rows. She speculated vaguely as to the 
probability of its all caving in that night. The poor 
hands would be the losers, the negroes, who had been 
holding on to these seed for better prices. She would 
be sorry for any thing that would make them any 
poorer. With a sharp pang it came to her that it was 
her own people she was pitying. Pitying them for 
their poverty and their struggles, and in her thoughts 
she went on adding their ignorance to their poverty, 
and their Godlessness to their ignorance, until the sum 
total was wretchedness, pure and simple. But the pity 
for them staid with her still, and grew. Another 
splash, heavier than the first ! A larger portion of the 
treacherous bank caved in. With her eye she measured 
the extent of bank outside the pile of seed. Was it 
likely it would cave up to the seed before morning? 
They should not have stacked them so near the brink. 
How queerly these commonplace considerations were 
mixing themselves up with the great grief that swal- 
lowed up every other trouble, as Aaron’s serpent swal- 
lowed up all the others. Old Dora’s withered face and 
awful malediction were before her always. Would she 
ever rid herself of them ? And that was her grand- 
mother ! Of that race she was sprung ! Then a deep 


244 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


silence seemed to envelop the world and her own tired 
soul. Of that silence was born a resolve ! Cut off for- 
ever from the race to which she belonged by education 
and sympathy, she must be as lonely as Lot’s wife, left 
upon the plain to perish. Since she was never to be 
happy here on earth, she must dedicate her life to the 
happiness of others. Her mother’s people should be 
the better for her having been : “And then, oh God ! 
perhaps indeed Thy peace Thou wilt grant unto me.” 
With clasped hands she turned her streaming eyes 
heavenward. 

“ Olga ! ” She heard her name called, first in tones 
of surprise, then angrily. “ What in heaven’s name are 
you doing here this time of the night? ” It was Eustis 
Stanhope’s voice, and with long strides he put himself 
by her side. 

“I am not doing any thing, Mr. Stanhope,” how 
quietly her voice came to him through the darkness. 
It was as if she was speaking to him from the other 
side of the gulf that had suddenly yawned between 
them. “ It was very warm in my room, and my head 
ached, and I came here for cooler air. Shep is with 
me. He would not let any one harm me. Please don’t 
speak so angrily.” 

“ There is no one to harm you, so far as that goes, 
child,” he spoke cclittle more mildly this time in pity 
for the ineffable sadness in her voice, “ but I am 
thoroughly provoked with you, Olga. You are not 


THE GULF FIXED. 


245 


treating your friends with the openness they are enti- 
tled to.” He was by her side now, digging his cane 
into the soft sand at their feet. The great yellow 
moon had risen slowly behind them and flooded the 
fields and river with pallid light. He could see her 
slight form tremble while he was speaking, but she 
should not sleep to-night without enlightening him, so 
he went on ruthlessly, not harshly though, “ I have 
asked my mother to tell me what trouble had over- 
taken you. She tells me that she thinks it is due you, 
to let you decide on your line of action before any 
thing more is said about it.” 

“That was kind of her,” Olga interrupted him to say. 

“ It was mystifying, and of all things I abhor mys- 
tery. So long as you are under my mother’s guar- 
dianship it is my duty toward off trouble from you, my 
duty, and — my pleasure, my dear little girl. I had no 
idea of finding you out here. I supposed you were still 
locked up in your room. I came to see if my seed were 
in any danger. But now that I have found you here — ” 
was it instinct or what was it ? Shep gave a low startled 
yelp, a strange gurgling of water followed it, the lower 
end of the long stack of cotton seed sacks quivered 
and tottered, Eustis flung his arm around Olga’s waist 
and with breathless speed drew her with him land-ward, 
not a second too soon ! The whole line of sacks tot- 
tered to their destruction, a rush of ingulfing waters, 
a boiling and foaming and eddying for the space of a 


246 WITHOUT BLEMISH. 

few moments, then the swift current of the river swept 
on over the very spot where Olga had been standing 
in her trance of woe for more than an hour. Eustis 
could feel her trembling in his clasp, her overstrained 
nerves could stand no more, for a second of frightened 
bewilderment she rested passively within the shelter 
of his arms. Her white face turned upward to him, 
her startled eyes resting on his in mute thankfulness 
for her rescue ! 

It was a wild impulse of unreasoning love that made 
Eustis Stanhope recklessly stoop at that moment and 
press a passionate kiss on the sweet quivering mouth. 
He held her close to him as he said, caressing her 
with his voice. 

My little Olga, suppose I had not been there?'' 

Then I would have been at rest ! " She pushed him 
from her with a force that surprised herself and without 
another word turned and fled. He did not try to keep 
pace with her. He walked on at a more leisurely gait. 
He could see her white dress fluttering before him in the 
road, Shep following close at her heels. He smiled to 
think how easy it would be to make it all right with 
her. “ My little girl does not know me yet, she does 
not know that I love her well enough to make her my 
wife in spite of the world, the flesh and my mother.” 

He went straight in to that mother’s presence as 
soon as he got back to the house. He was glad to find 
her alone. Virgina had seen Olga flitting through 


THE GULF FIXED, 


247 


the house like a ghost and had followed her with curi- 
osity and pity combining to force an entrance to her. 

Mother,” said Eustis, going straight into his sub- 
ject with a manliness that should have made his mother 
prouder of him than ever before. I have just done 
something that doubtless will make you very angry. 
But I hope you will bear in mind that I am of age and 
am the best judge of my own happiness. I can’t say 
that I meant to do what I have done, it was surprised 
out of me in a moment of peril, but I am ready and 
anxious to make good my words.” He possessed him- 
self of one of the long blue-veined hands that lay pas- 
sively folded on his aristocratic mother’s lap. Mrs. 
Stanhope’s voice was trembling with apprehension, as 
she asked : “What was surprised out of you, Eustis? 
Who has been in peril, my son ? ” 

Eustis laughed a trifle nervously, but answered 
resolutely : 

“A confession of love was startled from me.” 

“ For whom ? ” 

“ For Olga.” 

“ Olga who ? ” 

Mrs. Stanhope asked the cruel question in her iciest 
voice, that it might be borne in upon Eustis with 
stinging force that his love was a nameless charity girl. 
But all the pride and the stubbornness of all the Stan- 
hopes of Stanhope Hall could not quench that love. 
He rose loyally to its defense. He answered very 


248 


WITHOUT BLEMISH, 


gently, for he was not unmindful of what this thing 
must be to his mother. “We will give her a name, 
mother, and she will give us a world of sweetness and 
truth and tenderness.” 

“ But you would, at least I suppose you would, like 
to know what little there is to be known about the 
parentage of your proposed bride ? Or do you prefer 
not to investigate?” 

Eustis was more startled by this unbroken calm on 
his mother’s part than he would have been by the most 
violent outbreak. A deathly pallor spread over his 
handsome young face. “ I should like to know all that 
you know, mother. It will .not be pleasant to hear. 
Doubtless, I must brace myself for a shock. I have 
not just begun to acknowledge my love to myself, 
mother. I have fought against it with a pride worthy 
of your son. But I am convinced my happiness lies in 
Olga’s keeping and I hope that you will consider that 
an offset to every thing. She is such a perfect little 
woman, mother ! ” 

“ Even to the strain of negro blood in her veins?” 

“ What ! ” Eustis bounded to his feet with the 
word.. His voice was hoarse, great cords stood out on 
his forehead. “ Take that back, mother. Any thing 
but that.” 

She was sure of him once more. There was a 
ring of demoniacal triumph in her next words. “ Are 
you ready to take old Dora’s granddaughter to wife ? ” 


THE GULF FIXED, 


249 


A death-like silence ensued ! She could hear 
Eustis breathing like a man suddenly stricken with 
apoplexy. She reached out her hand to touch him. 
“ Heavens ! if she could but look into her boy’s face ! ” 
Would the misery stamped thereon have put her more 
at her ease ? Scarcely ! 

Eustis ! ” (this death-like silence was harrowing). 

Yes, mother.” (Was that her boy’s voice ?) 

“ Forgive me, son. It had to be done.” 

There is nothing to forgive, mother. At least, I 
have nothing to forgive you. My poor little Olga ! 
My lamb without blemish ! My gentle sin-offering, 
how my heart bleeds for her! Yes; it had to be 
done.” 

“ And so does mine,” said Mrs. Stanhope, giving 
tardy ingress to the angel of pity, now that she had 
got her son back and the gulf of separation between 
him and Olga was finally fixed. 

It was strange how unquestioningly both Olga and 
Eustis Stanhope had accepted Mrs. Stanhope’s fiat in 
this momentous juncture. That there was any room 
for doubt touching the matter, seemed never to have 
occurred to them. Perhaps it was because the charge 
was in itself so heinous, that for it to be brought to bear 
upon its victim, its forestablished truth must be taken 
for granted. Be that as it may, they accepted it for a 
hideous truth and with it their allotted portion of suf- 
fering for the sins of others. 


CHAPTER XXL 


ACCEPTANCE. 



HE coarse crab-grass and the ready dock-weed 


X were already clambering over the roughly made 
mound that marked old Dora’s resting place, when 
Olga once more rode through the sweet-scented woods 
toward the cabin where the tragedy of her own birth- 
story and its narrator’s swift-following death had been 
acted out. She almost envied the old woman, lying 
out there in the plantation burying-ground whose 
picket-fence she could see from the road. The thorn 
trees and the locust and pecans clasped sheltering arms 
to protect those humble sleepers from the sunshine and 
the rain, but her own way lay over and on and through 
the thorns. The superstitious terrors of the living 
made them shun this tree-shaded spot, where the honey- 
locust dropped its long pods silently on the grassy 
graves and the pecan nuts lay unsought save by the 
cawing crows and the birds sang requiems over 
the dead with the freedom that came of knowing no 
gunner would venture near the lonesome spot. It was 
restful and quiet out there under the honey-locusts 


ACCEPTANCE. 


251 


where they had laid old Dora, but with her — ah ! well, 
she was under the curse ! 

She reached the cabin fence and halted as she had 
done on that stormy evening so long ago it seemed ! 
Reuben was sitting on the block step, his head bowed 
listlessly, while his hands mechanically busied them- 
selves shaping an ax-helve from a piece of smooth 
white ash. The growling of the pur-blind cur that lay 
at his feet, made the old man lift his head quickly. 
Nobody had come near the cabin since the day of the 
“ buryin’," nor were they likely to come voluntarily. 
Dora’s reputation as a conjurer still clung to her 
earthly tenement, and Rose and Reuben were left to 
win their way out of the shadow of their mourning as 
best they might. The old man took off the round cap 
made of a bit of bright carpeting and laid it on his 
knee in concession to Olga’s presence, but did not rise. 
He was old and tired. He had been tired in every 
fiber of his being as far back as he could remember. 
Olga leaned over the fence from her pony’s back to 
send her voice to him. 

'‘Is — Rose at home. Uncle Reuben?” 

[She had come there to put a well-matured plan into 
operation, but now that she was on the spot she almost 
hoped something would intervene to render it imprac- 
ticable.] 

Reuben turned his head listlessly toward the interior 
fora second : “ Rose ! hyere’s w’ite folks axin’ fur you,” 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


252 

then his head dropped wearily, he resumed his bright 
cap, and started the gleaming blade of his huge clasp 
knife once more on its travels down the white-ash stick, 
the long white curls clinging caressingly to the blade. 

If Rose was in the house Olga had no excuse for not 
carrying out her programme in all its details. She 
threw the pony’s bridle over a picket, and slipping to 
the ground entered the little yard. It wore a deserted 
look with the empty chicken-coops tilted up against the 
side of the house, and old Dora’s broom laid across the 
low rafters of the gallery, and the pepper bushes bend- 
ing under the weight of their ungathered harvest. 
Olga’s knees were trembling under her, and her 
very lips were blanched as she resolutely mounted the 
clumsy block step and passed into Rose’s presence. 
She was stooping low over the open fire-place, prepar- 
ing dinner. The smell of boiling pork and greens 
greeted Olga’s nostrils, mingled with the odor of onions 
and stale tobacco. Her soul was sick nigh unto death, 
but she had come there to do what she had finally con- 
vinced herself was the only thing left for her to do, 
and should she recoil before a shock to her fastid- 
iousness? She had submitted the matter prayerfully 
and tearfully to the only tribunal she recognized. To 
the question asked in her agony : “ What wouldst Thou 
have me to do ? ” had seemed to come unmistakably the 
answer : “ Take up thy cross and follow me.” She 
was there in old Dora’s cabin in response to that com- 


ACCEPTANCE. 


253 


mand. She was trying to take up her cross, but oh ! 
what a heavy one it was for her childish shoulders. 
She was not doing this thing rashly. More than a 
month had passed now since she had stood in this cabin 
and trembled under old Dora’s maledictions. 

Waking up on the morning after her encounter with 
Eustis on the river bank, she had found herself unable 
to rise. Her throat was swollen and parched. Her 
flesh seemed sore to the touch, while shivering sensa- 
tions whenever she so much as moved a hand convinced 
her that nature was being revenged on her for her reck- 
less exposure to the night air. After which she had 
lain on a sick bed for nearly two weeks, sometimes for- 
getting in the acuteness of her bodily suffering all that 
had gone before and led up to it, not for long, how- 
ever, at a time. Ginia’s sisterly solicitude was too 
marked, and Mrs. Stanhope’s kindness was too thor- 
oughly impregnated with pity for her not to be re- 
minded of the great change in her relations to those 
about her. 

Ginia had formed her own theory of Olga’s distress, 
and as no one cared to enlighten her it passed into a 
solution of the mystery that had so plagued her ever 
since that night Ollie had acted so strangely, receiving 
confirmation from Eustis’s sudden departure for New 
Orleans on the very night of Olga’s seizure. It was 
evident these two foolish people had been falling in 
love with each other, and Auntie Stanhope was furious 


254 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


about it all. Virginia felt a glow of self-righteousness 
at the thought of this catastrophe befalling Olga instead 
of herself, and the satisfaction derived therefrom 
tinctured her bearing toward the sick girl with that 
tender solicitude under which poor Olga winced help- 
lessly. It was with a sigh of thankfulness that she 
gathered from Ginia’s ready gossip that Eustis had left 
Hardlines for an indefinite period of time. By the time 
he should have returned she would have carried into 
execution the plan whose germ had come to her in that 
dismal reverie upon the dark and treacherous river 
bank. 

This was the plan she matured on her sick bed : 

She would make one more effort to disprove herself 
the child that Rose had left in the Cleveland asylum, 
failing in that she would take the woman and keep her 
from want and educate her, and do, as far as she possi- 
bly might, a daughter’s part by her. Her first effort to 
disprove her parentage consisted in writing a letter to 
Miss Denton, telling her all the occurrences of that 
time of agony, and asking if she, who had been Rose’s 
employer about the period of her departure from home 
and later, could throw any light on the subject. With 
an aching heart and trembling hand good little Miss 
Denton had herself stripped the girl of the last remnant 
of hope. Her long letter closed with these words : 

“To me you will always be a dear sweet child, whom 
I propose never to lose sight of. Come over to me. 


ACCEPTANCE. 


255 


My home and heart are both open to you. If I could 
I would have warded off this blow from you.” 

But to go to Miss Denton was not in accordance 
with Olga’s plan. What that plan was she submitted 
calmly to Mrs. Stanhope : 

I am going to devote myself to the education and 
elevation of the — my own people,” she said, with a 
resolute compression of her sweet mouth. “If you or 
Mr. Stanhope (I am quite sure he will not object), will 
permit me to occupy that new cabin in the edge of the 
woods between this and Bendemma, I will get the 
public school, and I will strive as never teacher strove 
before to make light shine in the dark places. Per- ' 
haps, Mrs. Stanhope,” and her voice trembled over the 
words, “ if they, the negroes, had been taught some 
things, even though they were slaves, taught how 
sinful sin is, how God loathes all impurity, taught how 
very hard the way of the transgressor must prove, and 
taught how their children even unto the third and fourth 
generation would have to suffer for their iniquities, 
they might not have gone so very far astray, and / need 
never have been. But it is worse than useless for me 
to look backwards. Happiness, such happiness, you 
know, as girls love to dream about, is so entirely out of 
the question for me, that unless I find some substitute 
for it my heart will be consumed as by slow fire. I will 
be a faithful teacher to the children growing up in 
ignorance around us, and will try to sow some good 


256 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


seed in the hardened soil of the older people’s hearts 
and minds. I hope you will not think it is doing too 
much for me to let me have the cabin. It is new, you 
know, and clean, and off there in the edge of the 
woods where I will not have to absorb every sight and 
sound from the quarters.” 

But the loneliness of it, my poor child,” said Mrs. 
Stanhope, not entirely oblivious of all that was involved 
in this life that Olga proposed to take up with a prac- 
tical decision and apparent serenity that relieved the 
lady even while she marveled at it. Doubtless, she 
mentally concluded, the strain of servile blood in her 
veins was coming to the surface in form of this ready 
acceptance. 

shall not be afraid,” Olga answered readily; “and 
may I ask for a valuable present, Mrs. Stanhope ? I 
do so want not to give up Shep. He is the only thing, 
you know, that will love me all the same. You and 
Ginia and Miss Denton and (Eustis’s name would not 
come, at least not in that unsympathizing presence), 
every body will come after a while to think and speak 
of me with half-contemptuous pity as ‘poor Olga,’ 
‘Rose’s unfortunate daughter,’ or something of that 
sort. But Shep loves me for what I am. He will never 
change.” 

“You can have Shep and welcome, Olga, but I could 
not consent to let you live in that lonely cabin by 
yourself. If you are resolved on getting this public 


ACCEPTANCE. 


257 


school, and it will really pay you quite nicely, you had 
much better take board at Weston. I will speak to 
the trustees about getting the school for you, but you 
will have to look out for your boarding place.’’ 

“ I would not board at Weston. There is not a 
house in the place but what is occupied by a low shop- 
keeper. To a man they are interested in making all 
they can off the negro. I want to educate them into 
the power of resisting just such influences as these men 
bring to bear upon them. I have thought of little else 
than the moral and mental conditions of these people 
since I have discovered that they are my people. You 
can see therefore how the shop-keepers and I would 
stand in each other’s way. They would hate and 
hinder me, and I would oppose them with might and 
main.” 

“ I am quite sure Mrs. Trowbridge, then,” said 
Mrs. Stanhope, “ would gladly give you a room for 
such help as you might render her out of school-hours. 
She is very delicate and needs assistance.” 

Olga leaned over the bed-side (where she lay during 
this first talk about her future) and looked Mrs. Stan- 
hope searchingly in the face, forgetful of her blindness, 
as she asked, in almost a whisper : “ Would she gladly 
give me a room, Mrs. Stanhope, if she knew every 
thing?” which was the first and only allusion Olga 
ever made to the connection of ideas that had forced 
itself upon her own mind as to her parentage, roughly 


258 


WITHO U T BLEMISH. 


inducted into the knowledge of evil as she had been 
by old Dora’s brutal revelations. 

Mrs. Stanhope’s high-bred face crimsoned painfully, 
she leaned back in her chair, at a loss what to say next. 
Olga went on more quietly : 

“ Moreover, I do not propose to live there by myself. 
I am going to take — my mother — to live with me. I 
want to do all I can for her benighted soul, poor 
untaught sinner. Oh ! horrible, horrible, to find a 
mother as ignorant of the first principles of God’s 
truths as the beasts of the field ! ” 

For a few seconds the girl quivered under the con- 
vulsive emotion that overtook her like a sudden gust 
of wind. Mrs. Stanhope passed her hand soothingly 
over the smooth glossy hair that lay so near her 
chair : “ Poor child, poor child,” she said. I pity 
you from my heart.” 

“Thank you,” said Olga, drying her tears and once 
more entering into her plans, with a determined quiet- 
ness that caused Mrs. Stanhope to think, in her spirit- 
ual blindness, that the iron had not entered very 
deeply, and doubtless in a few years, the child would 
be very well satisfied in her new sphere of authority 
and superiority. So it was to unfold this plan to Rose 
that Olga had ridden over to the cabin in the woods 
so soon as ever she was able to ride at all. 

“ Rose,” she said, without any preamble, to the 
untidy woman bending over the open fire-place, “ I 


ACCEPTANCE. 


259 


want to talk with you, please. Can you stop work for 
a few moments? ” 

Rose had straightened herself up with a start as 
these words came to her from the open door. She 
came forward, now, hastily wiping her greasy hands on 
her apron ; smiling in welcome : “ Goodness me if it 
, ain’t Miss Ollie ! ” she placed the best chair hurriedly 
within Olga’s reach, then jerking off her begrimed 
apron, rolled it up and sent it as far as she could 
behind the bed, I’m a sight to behold,” she went on, 
with a nervous laugh, Miss Denton would give me 
words if she caught me lookin’ this way, but I can’t 
wash and cook and clean house an’ tend poultry and 
the Ian’ knows what besides, an’ keep dressed up like 
a lady all the time too. How’s the folks, honey? I 
’lowed to get up your way soon wid a passel of 
plums. Miss Ginny loves plums, mightily, don’ she 
though.” 

Poor Rose she fed the hungry mother heart in her 
by ministering to Ginia’s wants whenever opportunity 
offered or could be made. She asked no more of fate. 
Her darling was safe. Her child was not under the 
curse ! 

“Yes,” says Olga absently, “ I believe she does. 
But, if your father is not in any particular hurry for 
his dinner. Rose, I would like to talk to you. Sit down, 
please.” 

“ Father ! ” Rose laughed scornfully, as she cast a 


26 o 


WITHOUT BLEMISH 


careless look toward old Reuben’s shabby bent back — 
“ Unk Reube ain’ none er my daddy. My pa’s dead 
long years ago. He were another sorter man from 
Unk Reube.” 

Olga breathed a little freer. At least Reuben had 
no blood claim upon her ! Rose seated herself with a 
look of some curiosity, but no special interest in her 
face. Olga studied her meaningless features for a 
puzzled second. Could it be heroic self-abnegation on 
the part of this woman, or did she not even suspect 
her of being the child she had placed in the Cleveland 
asylum? Was there then no such thing as mother 
instinct after all ? 

Rose ! ” she asked with sudden directness, ‘‘ have 
you ever heard any thing of the little child you left in 
the asylum at Cleveland ? Don’t you want to hear 
something of her?” 

She was startled at the effect of her own words. 
Rose’s large eyes dilated as if she had seen a ghost ! 
Her face grew livid, she sat motionless and mute for a 
second, then flung up her hands and uttered a cry like 
a hunted animal. Old Reuben heard it and came in 
trembling haste to inquire into its cause. But not 
before him should the revelation of her disgrace 
be made. Olga waved him back imperiously : 

''She does not need you, Uncle Reuben, I will care 
for her,” and she did, standing up by the side of the 
trembling woman, and wiping away her tears with her 


ACCEPTANCE, 


261 


own handkerchief. “ Please don’t excite yourself, 
Rose. I have so much to say. And I need all my 
strength to say it.” 

Rose’s emotion subsided as suddenly as it had arisen. 
It was always with her the fury of a moment : “ What’s 
happened ? ” she asked, in a voice whose stubborn 
quietness was in sharp contrast with the tragic aban- 
donment of her first outburst. 

“You haven’t answered my first question yet,” said 
Olga in a voice of angelic patience, and repeated it : 
“ Have you ever heard any thing about her. Rose? ” 

“Yes,” said the woman, looking sullenly down at a 
knot-hole in the bare floor of the cabin. “ I know all 
I want to know ; what’s the use you coming here pes- 
terin’ about it for?” 

“ You know where she is, Rose ? Don’t be afraid to 
talk to me.” 

“Yes! Now, den, wil’ horses shan’t drag no more 
out of me.” 

Hope died hard in poor Olga’s breast. She did not 
know until that moment how much she had hoped 
Rose herself' would give the lie to old Dora’s state- 
ment. There was no use stringing out useless ques- 
tions. She might as well tell Rose all about her visit 
to the cabin, and about her mother’s revelations, which 
she did in a low, intense voice, speaking very.slowly, 
so that the woman should be able to take it all in. 
Rose moved neither hand nor foot after one startled 


262 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


exclamation over the treachery of her mother, and 
yet she was herself meditating yet deeper treachery. 

“ And so, Rose,” she heard Olga say in conclusion, 
“ I am going to take you to live with me, and I will be 
very glad to keep you in comfort all the rest of your 
days. I can not promise to feel like a daughter to you. 
That is impossible ; but I will be considerate of you in all 
things. And, Rose, one thing I would like to say: No 
good could come of telling about this to all the world, 
and it would weaken my authority with the people 
whom I want to influence for good, but — if it is your 
wish that I should be known as your daughter — ” She 
stopped, her breath was coming in quick, panting 
inspirations. 

Rose’s hands went out deprecatingly : “ Honey, if 

you’ll take me to live with you. I’ll be jus’ like a servan’ 
to you all my life. I ain’ gwine t’ las’ much longer, 
an’ you won’ be pestered with me ve’y long. You’s a 
good chile. You’s a good, sweet chile, an’ de Lord 
will remember you for this day’s work.” 

Only for a brief second did it occur to her to correct 
the error her mother had made. If Dora’s revelation 
had revealed the truth, Rose would have been ready to 
curse her in her grave. As it was, the mistake had 
only made Virginia’s safety doubly safe. In a fleeting 
second of remorse she pitied this girl whose refined 
beauty, whose dainty neatness, whose cultured mind 
must all be sacrificed in the life she was about to take 


ACCEPTANCE. 


263 


up in her supposed dedication of it to duty. “ But 
better her than my own," Rose said to herself, and 
ruthlessly riveted the bonds of error her mother had 
forged. 

“ I ain’ goin’ to pester you for a love you jus' can’t 
feel, my sweety," she said, dropping her eyes before 
the pure gaze she could not encounter. “There’s 
nothin’ to be gained by tellin’ folks any thing. Mammy 
done wrong in tellin’ it out to you, an’ the Lord, He 
punished her for it quick enough. Folks needn’t to " 
know nothin’, but that you’s Miss Ollie that lives in 
the new cabin, and teaches the folks on Bendemma and 
Hardlines, and Rose lives wid you and does for you. 
If I knowed how to beg your pardon for all the wrong 
I done long ago, honey. I’d beg it, but what’s done, ’s 

done. Nevermind ’’ she hesitated. In her benighted 

soul she took credit to herself for the attitude she 
assumed. “ Call me Rose, honey, just plain Rose. I 
don’t deserve nothin’ better at yo’ hands. An’, honey," 
(she would make up in willing servility what she lacked 
in truthfulness), “you can’t ask too much of me. And, 
maybe, it won’t be for long, you know, and when I’se 
done gone to lay me down by mammy’s side, out yon’ 
under the thorn trees, if I gets a bearin’ up above. I’ll 
ask Him to save de crown uv de peace-makers for you," 
says Rose, breaking down entirely once more, and 
covering her face with her thin, yellow hands, through 
which Olga could see the tears trickling. 


264 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


The last words were altogether meaningless to Olga, 
who had no clew to them. How could she divine that 
Rose was enrolling her among the peace-makers, 
because, by this ready assumption of filial duties, she 
was forever securing Ginia’s occupation of an exalted 
social position and a life of peace and pleasantness, 
which Rose herself would gladly have died to secure 
for her child ? Olga only saw in her emotion a tender- 
ness of conscience, and a quickness of remorse, that 
promised good soil for the seed she meant to sow so 
soon as she had taken this poor cast-a-way under her 
own protection. So, with a few words spoken with intent 
to smooth a mother’s way, she got up and went away, 
promising to send for Rose at the proper time. 

She thanked God that night for the measure of 
strength granted her for this interview, and set her 
face like a flint toward the carrying out of her plans 
with all expedition. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


OLGA’S BOX, 



ND so the days moved on, unmindful of all the 


shattering of plans and the blighting of hopes, 
and the tumbling of bright air-castles that marked 
their passage from spring to winter, as the track of a 
ruthless conqueror is strewn with wrecks and ashes and 
devastation, until they reached the short bleak Decem- 
ber days, when every thing pleasant seemed to 
come to a stand-still about Stanhope Hall, where, 
behind closed doors and windows brooded more than a 
physical discontent. 

Winter, in those low latitudes, where the much 
be-sung “ beautiful snow ” conveys no idea more ex- 
hilarating than that of mud and slush, where the miti- 
gating joys of a northern winter are things received by 
hearsay and not by sight, must always seem altogether 
evil to those pessimists, who, taking a narrowly per- 
sonal view of nature’s most immutable laws, shiver and 
moan through the wet, wind-pierced days with a sense 
of personal injury upon them ; and the three who 
formed the family circle at the Hall, were none of them 


266 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


capable or anxious to lighten each other’s burdens in 
this respect. 

“ It’s just too dismal for any thing,” Ginia declared, 
yawning audibly over the book she held in her lap, but 
staring out at the dripping rain that pattered noisily 
down upon the heaps of dead leaves that even in 
mid-winter cumbered the uncared for terraces in front 
of the Hall. Mrs. Stanhope’s big wooden knitting- 
needles clicked monotonously, and she could hear Eustis 
knocking the billiard balls about in the room across the 
big hall in a lazily indifferent way. “ I wish Ollie was 
here,” she said wistfully. I nearly die for somebody 
to talk to of nights. I wonder if it’s cold over there in 
that cabin? The idea of a girl like that going crazy 
about educating the colored people! Mercy! it would 
kill me, just kill me, I know, to have those horrid little 
dirty wretches crowding close about me with their 
grimy slates and greasy primers.” 

“ Olga has a great deal of will-power,” said Mrs. 
Stanhope placidly, loosening a fresh supply of wool from 
her ball. “ I hope she is comfortable. They say she 
is doing wonderful work among the freedmen already.” 

“ I think it’s the strangest thing in the world what a 
mystery was made over that ” 

“ Virginia,” Mrs. Stanhope interrupted her ih her 
most authoritative voice, “ I have had occasion before 
to tell you that Olga’s decision met with my entire 
approval. That is all you need to know.” 


OLGA'S BOX. 


267 


Ginia closed the book on her lap with as near a bang 
as she dared venture upon and sauntered sulkily over to 
the window, where she stood staring out on the moist 
comfortless landscape while she drummed on the window 
pane with her pretty taper fingers. This was one of 
the days when a body just didn’t know what to do with 
oneself. The billiard balls stopped after while and the 
door behind her opened to admit Eustis. He looked 
of a piece with the day, cloudy and unpromising. 
His presence, however, gave her release. There was 
one thing, and only orte, a body could do to amuse one- 
self on such a day, and that was to ‘‘rummage.” It 
was her delight, and always had been, to rummage in 
the big back room under the roof, where the accumu- 
lated finery of Mrs. Stanhope’s society days now lay 
stored and forgotten for this many a year. Here on 
her knees before a big trunk, bedecked in a glisten- 
ing silk, with the door locked against possible intrusion, 
not without a sort of guilty consciousness that she was 
doing what she ought not to do, Ginia lost all count of 
time and all care for the lowering clouds, whether on 
Eustis’s handsome face, or on the far away skies. What 
cared she for skies or clouds when she heard the soft 
silken rustle of the long trains of Mrs. Stanhope’s din- 
ner dresses as she slipped into them one after another 
and trailed them oyer the dusty floor of the garret room ! 
What unsatisfactory glimpses she caught of herself in 
the dingy looking glass, hung so high over the old- 


268 


WITHOUT BLEMISH, 


fashioned bureau ! If she could only catch a glimpse of 
the train ! To whom would all this wasted splendor be- 
long some day? Why not to her! Who would “carry 
it all off " better ? She gazed at her own pretty flushed 
cheeks in the dust-dimmed mirror, with entire 
satisfaction. Would these all be hers? Did not 
Mrs. Stanhope often call her daughter, even now ? 

Eustis said he hated frivolous women. But was not 
she studying and practicing and reading “awfully 
hard,” so as not to be frivolous. Was there any body 
prettier than she within his reach ? Wouldn’t he have 
to marry somebody some of these days? Could he go 
on knocking billiard balls about and riding in to town 
and back with the morning’s paper all his life? He 
wouldn’t even go to Hardlines now, said he meant to 
sell the place ! If he ever had been in love with Ollie, 
he must despise her now that she was school-mistress to 
the colored people 1 All these and a host of other dis- 
jointed reflections jostled themselves about in Ginia’s 
giddy head, until she settled down into more absorbed 
and quieter interest before a discovery that assumed 
the proportions of a mystery. 

She had penetrated to the very bottom of one of 
Mrs. Stanhope’s largest trunks. About her on the 
chairs, on the floor, on the lid of the trunk was scat- 
tered the accumulation of her research. Into the heap 
upon the floor she sank with flushed cheeks and 
dancing eyes clasping close her latest treasure trove. 


OLGA'S BOX. 


269 


It was a small black wooden box, tied about in a 
clumsy and unsystematic manner with strong twine 
strings, looking as if security rather than neatness had 
been aimed at. The box itself was of rose-wood 
blackened by time, with brass tips at the four corners 
and a brass name-plate on the top. “ Either a work- 
box or a writing desk,” Ginia concluded, placidly 
applying herself to the task of loosening the many 
knots that bound it. No easy task, for they had been 
tied many and many a year ago, with rigid intent. “ It 
was so very heavy that it must contain jewelry ! 
Who knew, diamonds perhaps? Mrs. Stanhope’s 
diamonds ! But she would try them on all the same. 
If Ollie was there she would tell her ‘‘ it was disgrace- 
ful,” that was what Ollie always said when she begged 
her to “ rummage ” with her. But Ollie was far enough 
away over yonder in the poor little cabin of her own 
choosing teaching woolly headed boys and girls, and she 
had the trunks and the silks and the — here in frantic 
eagerness to penetrate the mystery of the black box 
Ginia took out her pocket-knife and cut the stubborn 
knots recklessly. Still the lid would not yield ! With a 
violent jerk she separated box and lid. The top parted 
suddenly and entirely from the rusty hinges, and fell 
to the floor with a sound that was magnified by the 
stillness of the room and the nervous tremor of a guilty 
conscience. A faint odor of violets floated out upon 
the damp air of the garret-room. A faded damask 


27 © 


WIT HO U T BLEMISH. 


d’oyley lay spread over the contents of the box. Ginia 
lifted it reverently, prepared for the dazzle of jewels. 
Instead — the most conspicuous object was a sealed letter 
on which was written : “For my little daughter Olga, 
to be given to her when she comes of age. Until then 
to be kept by the matron of the asylum in Cleveland, 
to whom her faithful nurse has promised me she 
would take her when I die. I do not want my 
daughter to have this box or letter before, because 
she must have arrived at an age when calm and 
judicious decision in a matter of great mom ent is 
possible for her.” 

All this written in a close fine hand was upon the 
surface of the letter. This then was Ollie’s box after 
all ? And why had it not been given to her? Perhaps 
the time had not come yet, but it soon must. How 
she wished she knew what was in that letter! But that 
of course she never would. She laid the letter, wrapped 
about with the faded d’oyley on the floor by her 
side, with a virtuous sensation of resisting a mighty 
temptation. Then she proceeded calmly to examine 
the contents of the box. They were none of them 
very valuable. In fact, coming as they did in place of 
the diamonds she had prepared her mind for, they were 
altogether disappointing. “ Mere trumpery,” she said 
contemptuously, trying on the little gold thimble that 
was bent and had holes in the end of it. And opening 
the tiny blue enamel box that was filled with odds and 


OLGA'S BOX. 


271 


ends of cheap jewelry, mostly broken, ana casting aside 
as not worth a glance, a bulky package of letters, that 
would have been to Olga pearls without price. There 
were faded ribbons carefully folded about bits of paste- 
board ; there was a tiny gold Watch attached to a 
chain of gold and onyx links ; there was a little Bible 
that looked as if it had been very much read ; and there 
was a clumsy double ambrotype case, in one side of 
which was the picture of a sweet worn woman face, on 
the opposite, a black-browed, black-eyed man with a 
fierce mustache and a sneering face above it. “ Olga’s 
papa and mamma, I suppose.” 

Much good may it do her to find out how they 
looked ! I’d rather not know any thing about mine. 
Her father looks like a pirate.” 

Ginia was still gazing at the ambrotype when the 
unwonted sound of carriage-wheels caused her to start 
suddenly to her feet. If she was very expeditious she 
could see who it was as the carriage came around the 
curve. Forgetful of the long silken train she was still 
encumbered by, she sprang impetuously to her feet, 
stumbled, caught at the edge of the open trunk before 
her, heard a crash, which she did not stop to investi- 
gate, flew to the window just in time to see Miss Den- 
ton’s old white horse and enfeebled buggy creep into 
sight, with the little old lady herself in it, but driven 
this time by a decidedly masculine escort. 

“ He’s come ! ” says Virginia, gazing down for a sec- 


272 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


ond on the unconscious couple through the dormer 
window. Then turning hastily about to cram the con- 
tents of the trunk back into place : What a godsend, 
visitors on such a day ! ” Ollie’s ambrotype lay in a 
thousand bits at her feet! With a cry of dismay she 
fell on her knees and began hastily gathering up the 
bits. What could she do? What should she do? 
Nothing but hide it. Hide it all. Put it back in the 
box until at her leisure she could fix it all as nearly as 
possible as it had been before. But there was no time 
to do that now. They would be calling for her down 
stairs before she got half those things put back in the 
trunk. With breathless speed she divested herself of 
the heavy silk dress, flung the contents of the trunk 
pell-mell back into it — pushing along with it the d’oyly- 
wrapped letter — shoved the broken picture back into 
the box, gathered lid and all into her trembling arms, 
and had barely gained a safe hiding place for it in her 
own room, when the anticipated call came for her. The 
summons reached her through “ Dumps.” 

She was wanted down stairs. “ Ole Miss hed 
comp’ny.” 

‘‘Who is it. Dumps?” Ginia asked, feigning igno- 
rance, while she gained time to freshen up a little in the 
matter of her hair that had become towzled with the 
trying on of many dresses, and to applying powder to 
cheeks that were rosy from commingled excitement 
and hurry. 


OLGA'S BOX. 


273 


Miss Denton en Mister Bob/’ 

*‘Who is ‘Mr. Bob’?” 

“ Law, Miss Ginny, whar yo’ years ben all dis time, 
dat you ain’ ben bearin’ Mr. Bob done come home? 
He owns de place where Miss Denton lives, en she 
done tuk keer on him w’en he was ve’y little. I 
recollects him w’en he wasn’t no higher dan dis.” 
Dumps held one greasy hand about two feet from 
the floor, and then suddenly whirled on her heels 
and disappeared, seemingly not thinking it worth while 
to enlighten Ginia any further on the subject of Mr. 
Bob. 

Ginia followed at a more leisurely gait, vainly wish- 
ing that the cold, damp air of the halls would annul 
the burning color in her cheeks. 

She entered the room in her shyest manner. It was 
strategy thrown away. There was no one there but 
Mrs. Stanhope and Miss Denton, who was sitting close 
up to the lady of the Hall, sending her words vig- 
orously into the ear next to her, quite as if Mrs. 
Stanhope were deaf as well as blind. She nodded 
pleasantly to Ginia, and held out her hand, without 
stopping: 

“And I was saying to myself this morning that 

I would only wait long enough to get a good lot of 
servants established for Robert, and give him some 
notion of his own affairs, then I would carry out my 
long-ago-formed plan of going to Olga. I’m going to 


274 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


live with her. Poor, lonely darling ! She’s a perfect 
heroine. Her letters to me are the most beautiful 
things — but — of course you hear from her too. Bob 
doesn’t know a word of my plans yet.” Miss Denton’s 
sentences often became involved. 

No,” said Mrs. Stanhope, flinching, as she always 
did, from any prolonged discussion of Olga’s affairs. 

There is no reason why she should write, unless to 
Virginia for old association’s sake. We hear nothing 
direct.” 

“Well, then, if you haven’t heard direct, you’ve just 
got to listen to this,”says Miss Denton, imperatively, 
as she dives into her pocket and fishes up a letter, from 
which she reads ; 

“You ask me if I am lonely, my dear Miss Denton. 
There are times when I feel forsaken of God and 
man. These are in the long dull evenings when the 
feeble light from my kerosene lamp flickers and loses 
itself in the dark rafters of my unceiled room ; when 
Rose sits on the other side of the table at which 
I am writing, her poor, bewildered eyes following 
my pen with such childlike, eager curiosity that 
my soul is filled with bitterness against the institution 
that made it possible for human beings with hearts and 
brains and souls to live and die in such animal ignor- 
ance of all but their mere physical needs. Can I ever 
make her companionable ? Can I ever bridge over the- 
awful chasm between us ? I reach out my hands tg 


OLGA'S BOX. 


275 


her helpfully, ay, wishfully, but more and more she 
seems to shrink within herself, treating me with a 
deference that is servility, and with homage that is all 
pain to me. But things grow brighter, dear, when the 
day comes back and I know I can fill every moment of 
the time with useful endeavor to lighten ignorance so 
dense that small wonder all the vices follow in its 
train. Ah ! I wish I was older, wiser and better fitted 
for this task. Feeble as I am, and novice in the work, I ^ 
can see how herculean is the undertaking, but not 
hopeless. We see partisan statements in the papers, 
(for I read all I can find on this subject now), that, on 
the one side would make you believe the negro does not 
care for mental or moral improvement, that he is a mere 
imitator and will only imitate to a certain grade of easy 
ascent and there stop or retrograde ; you will read, on 
the other hand, that his soul, emancipated when the 
shackles of slavery were struck off, pants for the waters 
of knowledge with thirst born of long waiting : but one 
who lives among them, and thinks of scarcely any 
thing but them, must form a more correct estimate // 
and will find it between the two. Ah ! my dear Miss 
Denton, in the happy days when you were teacher 
and I was care-free pupil, if I’d only known what 
Providence had in store for me, how much harder I 
would have studied, for now I feel as if I have so little 
to give out where so much is needed. My day-school 
I find irksome and commonplace. Composed of boys 


276 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


and girls with the usual juvenile abhorrence of hard 
study. But my night-school taxes brain and heart 
more severely. Then stalwart men, some far beyond 
the prime of life, and dull-eyed women sit patiently on 
the hard wooden benches, while I try to instil into 
their stunted conception the lessons they should have 
imbibed scores of years before. With them I strive 
after a moral conquest. If I can but make one man, 
or one woman, among them all hate a lie because God 
hates it, loathe a sin because sin is loathsome, or shrink 
from a theft because the command has gone forth 
*■ thou shalt not steal,’ I will not count my life' a fail- 
ure.” 

Miss Denton paused to wipe away the tears that 
were making her glasses too dim to be seen through. 

Virginia seized this opportunity to ask querulously, 
“Why should Ollie want to bridge over the chasm be- 
tween her and Rose ? why should she want to make 
her companionable ? Rose, a horrid, slovenly, ignorant 
colored woman and Ollie so pretty and refined ? ” 

“ Because Olga is an angel,” says Miss Denton with 
enthusiasm that sounded snappish, “ and — and — where 
was I, oh, yes,” then, with a sudden revulsion, she 
shoved the letter back into its envelope saying, “ but, 
there’s no use baring her tender confessions any further. 
She makes a pathetic little allusion to her coming birth- 
day, though how the child can have got hold of any 
thing from that stupid woman, I can’t see,” 


OLGA'S BOX. 


277 

What stupid woman ? ” Ginia asked, eagerly alert 
over any item that would help solve the mystery of 
Olga’s sudden separation from the family. 

“ Virginia,” says Mrs. Stanhope, “ see that Margaret 
has boiled custard for dinner, and you must superintend 
Dumps in the dining-room. I don’t want Robert’s 
first dinner with his old friends to be an entire failure.” 

Ginia took her dismissal ungraciously but submis- 
sively. “You know,” said Mrs. Stanhope, “ Virginia 
knows nothing more than that Olga has selected her 
own line of self-support. Her coming birth-day is her 
eighteenth I believe.” 

“Yes.” 

“ Then the time has come when she is entitled to 
receive the box given me by the matron of the asy- 
lum.” 

“ What is in it ? ” 

“ That I do not know. I was told that the child’s 
nurse left it with her with a verbal request that it 
should be given her on that day, stating it to be 
the mother’s wish,” with mocking emphasis on nurse 
and mother. 

“ That’s queer.” 

“ Not at all. When this woman Rose put her child 
at the asylum it was evident she. passed herself off as 
its nurse in order to protect it against the charge of 
mixed blood. If you really intend going over to the 
swamp, I should like you to take charge of that box.” 


278 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


“ I really intend going over the latter part of this 
month for about two weeks. I am simply waiting to 
organize Robert’s household. I’m quite sure I shall be 
in the dear boy’s way after that. Besides, I’ve no 
notion of waiting for his wife to turn me out.” And as 
Ginia came back to announce her duties done she 
heard Mrs. Stanhope say decisively: I will have the 

box ready to send by you.” 

Her heart sank within her at the prospect of being 
summarily ordered to fetch the box that was now 
lying all “ at sixes and sevens ” between the mattresses 
of her bed, but Mrs. Stanhope glanced off to another 
subject, and Miss Denton’s forehead had taken on 
those three little wrinkles between the brows that 
Ollie used to call her puzzle wrinkles. 

They were her puzzle wrinkles. For the first time 
the possibility of a doubt had entered Miss Denton’s 
mind, and she hailed its advent with joy. 

Might there not after all be some mistake about 
Rose and Olga? that was the doubt that wrinkled 
Miss Denton’s smooth forehead and set her honest 
heart beating high with hope for the girl she loved 
and honored. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


DR. MADDOX, 


« ND what has Robert’s long sojourn North done 



£\ for him?” Mrs Stanhope asked, by way of drop- 
ping Olga out of the discussion. [She could not quite for- 
get that romantic episode of her son’s with the asylum 
child, and with finite justice she resented it by vaguely 
blaming Olga for every thing.] 

Sent him home minus a few moldy prejudices 
and plus some good healthy new notions, I hope,” 
Miss Denton answers briskly. ^‘You know Robert 
is Dr. Maddox now. I feel immensely deferential 
toward him and have to keep on reminding myself how 
often I’ve kept him in and locked him up and done 
every thing but switch him, to save myself from becom- 
ing absolutely abject to him now.” 

Mrs. Stanhope sighed ! Robert Maddox and Eustis 
had started on the race pretty evenly handicapped. Eus- 
tis seemed to be sinking into a languorous indifference 
to every thing; while every one was predicting 
immense success for his friend. Miss Denton loved to 
talk of “ her boy,” so she cantered off briskly once 
more, on her pet hobby : 


28 o 


WITHOUT BLEMISH 


“Yes, Robert has come home with that curly head 
of his chock-full of plans and intentions and ideas that 
will perhaps bring down plenty of criticism of an 
uncomfortable sort from those of his old friends, or 
rather, his father’s old friends (for Bob belongs to the 
New South), who are absolutely incapable of expansion. 
Thank heaven, men of that sort are growing fewer in 
our midst every year.” 

“But what sort of plans and intentions ? ” Mrs Stan- 
hope asks uneasily. [She shrank with conservative horror 
from such vaguely outlined possibilities. The “New 
South ” had such a terribly revolutionary sound. It 
might mean just any thing, you know. Mrs. Stanhope 
was opposed on general principles to new any thing.] 

“ Oh ! about every thing, my dear,” Miss Denton says 
with breezy comprehensiveness ; “ about sanitary 

improvement, and land syndicates and, — and, well about 
the negro most ’specially.” 

“ The negro ! It seems to me the world has gone 
wild on that one subject.” 

“ Not the world exactly, but he is undoubtedly the 
problem in this country to-day, and a very knotty one 
at that, if columns of type and an awful spilling of 
argument is any test.” 

“ And how does Robert propose to settle this vexed 
question ? I don’t doubt from what you say that he has 
come home fully prepared to do so.” 

“ Now, my dear, don’t wax sarcastic at my Bob’s 


DR. MADDOX. 


281 


expense. Bob is just the humblest minded boy you 
know of. There’s your dinner bell and I never was as 
glad to hear anything in my life, I’m positively raven- 
ous. You can make Robert explain his own position 
to you at table, that is provided you want it explained.” 

The young man who entered the dining-room with 
Eustis a few minutes later carried no visible suggestion 
in his face, of the reformer overpowered by a sense of 
monstrous evils to be reformed. There was a joyous- 
ness, if one may so call it, in the glance of his bright 
blue eyes, a sweetness in the curves of his unbearded 
lips, that were the flowers of his optimistic nature. 
That there were many and manifold evils crying aloud 
for correction he did not doubt any more than he 
doubted that God’s power being equal to His goodness 
these evils would be righted in His own good time and 
manner. If he might be used as an instrument he 
would be glad, but he did not contemplate life gloomily 
nor hopelessly. His quick brisk step, ruddy complex- 
ion, sharp incisive utterance, and alert glance, were all 
in painful contrast to Eustis’s almost sluggish accept- 
ance of his lot as it had been marred by untoward 
circumstances. 

Amiable little Miss Denton felt a sort of satisfaction 
in the reflection that Mrs. Stanhope could not contrast 
the two “ boys ” as they entered the room together ; she 
thought Eustis ** was aging ” already. 

Dr. Maddox’s gaze rested wonderingly for a brief 


282 WITHOUT BLEMISH. 

second on the pretty girl behind the soup-tureen. 
Miss Denton had written him years ago about Mrs. 
Stanhope’s charity asylum orphans, but this slim- 
waisted, fair cheeked girl, with the wavy black hair 
arranged in such stylishly fluffy bangs, with the large 
tender eyes that challenged you to admire them even 
at the moment of coyly veiling them under white lids, 
could never be the asylum girl ! He stood with his 
hand on the back of his chair in an attitude of waiting, 
noticing which Eustis did a daring thing : 

“ Miss Virginia Stanhope, Bob, my mother’s adopted 
daughter.” 

Mrs. Stanhope’s patrician blood mounted slowly to 
her blue veined temples. Virginia’s glance was full of 
terrified surprise. It was the first time the two names 
Virginia and Stanhope had been coupled in sound. 
This was not the way her foolish fancy had coupled 
them. But it settled every thing, she told herself 
vaguely, and fell demurely to ladling out the turtle- 
soup in front of her, wondering the while Miss Denton 
had never told them how good-looking Dr. Maddox 
was. Virginia’s heart was very much on the order of 
the turtle eggs that entered into the composition of 
the soup she was ladling out with such grace, combin- 
ing toughness with softness, taking an impression from 
the slightest touch, only to lose one indentation for 
another whenever the pressure should be applied to a 
hew spot. 


DR. MADDOX. 


283 


“ Miss Denton tells me, Robert,” says Mrs. Stanhope, 
filling up the interim of waiting while Dumps slowly 
labored to prepare the table for dessert, “ that you 
have come home with an alarming -stock of ideas or a 
stock of alarming ideas, which is it?” 

“ Certainly not the former and I hope not the lat- 
ter,” says Dr. Maddox, with a rollicking laugh at his 
own expense. 

“You would say the latter, mother,” says Eustis ; 
“ he’s been giving me his views on the subject of the 
future of the negro with the most shocking disregard 
for precedent. I’m a trifle in advance of you and maybe 
of Miss Denton there, but I’m not prepared to follow 
Bob the length he would have me go.” 

“ Not prepared ! There it lies in a nut-shell,” says 
Robert eagerly, “ but you will come to think as I do, 
Eu, before many more years roll over your head unless 
you are already fossilized — ” 

“ Only partially,” Eustis muttered sourly, but the 
doctor went on unheeding — 

“ The march of ideas is slow at best, but they creep 
where men are shut off from the nerve centers of prog- 
ress as we are here, and everywhere where those aids 
to civilization, railroads, are practically impossible.” 

“But my dear Robert! ” says Mrs. Stanhope quer- 
ulously, “ what does all this ado about the negro and 
his future status and his rights and his wrongs amount 
to? Didn’t he get every thing on earth he could possi- 


284 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


bly want in getting his freedom? He is doing well 
enough.” 

“ Is he, Mrs. Stanhope? That is the question of to- 
day. Is he doing well enough for himself or for us ? 
Is he doing well enough to become in time self-assert- 
ing against the evil political influences that will always 
aim to secure his casting vote? Is he doing so well 
that in the course of time the right sort of color dis- 
tinction shall exist between the two races which are 
indissolubly linked together for all time to come, and 
yet perfect amity prevail ? ” 

“ I think he is,” says Eustis, taking up the argument 
for his mother. “ There are many hopeful signs visible 
in every direction, in spite of what the pessimists say. 
He is gradually getting rid of the restlessness which, 
immediately after the war, told so against the interests 
of both employer and employed. The annual local flit- 
tings, begotten oftener of his financial failure and disap- 
pointment than of any thing else, are growing less fre- 
quent than formerly as he comes to form a juster estimate 
of values. He is unambitious and incurious by nature, 
and his fleeting desire to explore untried ground is dying 
out rapidly. I suppose you might cite the Kansas craze 
in contradiction, but as that hegira was simply the out- 
come of false and alluring promises which had its sad 
and prompt sequel in the home-coming of boat-loads 
of foot-sore and heart-sick dupes, it counts for nothing 
in the way of argument. Then again he is getting 


DR, MADDOX, 


285 


beyond the childishness of spending all his profits from 
his crops on brass jewelry and pewter watches and 
cheap fire-arms. He is becoming wiser and shrewder 
in barter and trade. Oh ! yes, there is noticeable 
improvement.” 

Robert’s blue eyes flashed as he answered hastily : 

“ You are arguing from a commercial point of view 
exclusively, I see. There is noticeable improvement, 
because he stays in your cabins and tills your land from 
year to year instead of wandering away to your neigh- 
bors, to his pecuniary loss, and yours too, or because he 
puts his money into a pair of blankets instead of into a 
watch without works, or because he can hold his own 
a trifle better in trade with the Jew ^hop-keepers, who 
swarm about the plantations like so many vampires 
waiting to suck his blood.” 

“Well, what more would you have? You’ve not 
come home imbued with any social equality nonsense, 
I hope. Bob ! It won’t go down here. Bob. I advise 
you to stop short of such radicalism. I do, indeed. 
We stand a good deal down here from people who do 
not understand us and are not in sympathy with us, 
but you ought to know and feel where the rub comes.” 

“I think I do, Eu,” Doctor Maddox leaned over 
and laid his hand affectionately on his old friend’s 
shoulder, “ and it is just because I do know and feel 
where the rub comes, that I am in such dead earnest 
about bettering matters for my own people of both 


286 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


colors. For they are our people, Eustis, peculiarly 
ours bound, to us by the past and the present and the 
future. Men may multiply statistics as they will to try 
to prognosticate the relative position of the Southern 
whites and blacks in nineteen hundred and eighty-five, 
but it is the colored man of to-day we have to live with, 
and do with. They may exhaust themselves devising 
schemes of adjustment that don’t adjust and never can 
be made to adjust any thing. Suggestions as to the 
negro’s future can only be valuable as they are based 
upon an intimate knowledge of him as he is to-day, and 
no one has that knowledge in its entirety but the 
Southern young men of to-day, Eustis. You and I and 
the rest of the boys who have been born and reared 
among them at the time when our country was in the 
throes of revolution. To us the tremendous fact 
of emancipation came when we were young and 
malleable enough to bend under the shock of it with- 
out being broken ; when our point of vision had not 
been so immovably focused as to disable us from look- 
ing at the question of freedom from both sides, not 
seeing in it exclusively a death-blow struck at ourselves, 
our inheritance and our rights. The older Southern 
men are too sore to grapple the problem of to-day im- 
partially, and the Northern man is too ignorant.” 

“ Well, what are you going to do about him ? He is 
here and here he is going to stay, and we are here and 
here ^e are going to stay,” 



DR. MADDOX, 


287 


** Precisely. And it is that fixedness of both races 
that gives the question its vital importance. Without 
claiming for the negro any special local attachment, it 
is safe to say he is totally void of any spirit of enter- 
prise which would ever tempt him to try his fortunes 
in strange lands. The power to forecast with certainty 
the destiny of man or nations does not belong to mor- 
tals, but it requires no second-sight to forecast the 
future of this country if we are not wise in time. So 
long as he remains ignorant, he must prove a source of 
danger. He is physically a strong man, and strength 
unsanctified by moral courage is the most dangerous 
sort of brute force. We can never hope to gain any 
thing by that kind of self-assertion which will bring him 
into obnoxious contact with the ruling race. We can 
never hope to gain any thing by riveting upon him the 
bands of ignorance, which only lead him to imagine 
wrongs that do not exist, and to nourish antagonisms 
that injure himself alone. With the expansion of his 
intellect and the cultivation of his humanity, his self- 
esteem will be increased, and in proportion as he begins 
to recognize intelligence and respectability, and all the 
decencies of life as among his own possible possessions 
will he prize them more highly in others, especially in 
those who aspire to be his leaders.” 

But we are educating them,” says Eustis, rather irri- 
tably, for his friend was harping on a string that gavQ 
forth most discordant notes, 


288 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


After a fashion, yes. Doubtless there are educa- 
tional centers established for him where tremendous 
strides in the right direction have already been taken. 
But after all what does educating such a horde of 
densely ignorant people involve? 

“ It means that constant dropping that wears away 
the stone. It means that sowing of our seed broad- 
cast, taking no thought whether it fall among the 
brambles or in the stony places, so we chance the good 
soil along with the bad. It means an up-rooting as 
well as an ingrafting, for they have as much to unlearn 
as to learn. It means the line upon line, the precept 
upon precept, the here a little and there a little, which 
every man and woman, yes, and boy or girl, has in his 
or her power to instil into the confused and bewildered, 
but receptive minds of one of the most docile races on 
earth. The great problem of the future of the negro 
is ours of the South to solve, and ours alone, and woe 
be to us if in any other spirit than that of absolute 
fairness we set about the task. Don’t let us fall into 
the error of thinking him simply a convenience, where 
once he was a chattel.” 

“It means,” says Miss Denton, taking the words from 
him, “just what Olga Seleman has set herself to do, 
and is doing, while the rest of the world is talking about 
doing it.” 

“Olga Seleman! Who is she? The name sounds 
Jewish.” 


DR. MADDOX. 


289 


^*She is one of God’s chosen hand-maidens,” says 
Miss Denton, with shining eyes, and Eustis Stanhope 
bowed his head reverently, but no one thought it worth 
while to explain to Dr. Maddox that from “ nameless ” 
poor Ollie had evolved her Jewish sounding cognomen. 

(“You know,” she had said piteously, “ I must have 
some name for the use of the school directors.”) 

As they sat over their cigars a little later on, Eustis 
Stanhope forced himself to tell Robert, in answer to 
his persistent questioning, enough about Olga and her 
self-assumed calling, to enable that shrewd young stu- 
dent of human nature to form two wise conclusions : 

Olga Seleman was no ordinary sort of girl. 

His friend Eustis loved the girl with the Jewish 
name, but for some reason loved hopelessly. 

“ Pride and prejudice intervening, I suppose,” he 
thought, watching the up-climbing wreaths of his cigar 
smoke, and turning his fancy upon Ginia’s lovely eyes, 
that haunted him most unaccountably. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


AUNT JUDY LITTLE. 

F or the leaf-strewn terraces of Stanhope Hall, 
which the dark and shining foliage of ever-green 
shrubs saved from utter desolation even at the dreariest 
season ; for the chill stateliness of its loftily ceiled and 
softly carpeted rooms, where misery could at least 
wrap itself about with the cloak of dignity ; for the 
graveled carriage drive, that made the house accessible 
under any stress of weather, given — a lonely wagon 
road, cut into deep, yawning ruts by constant travel, 
and gloomily shaded by close crowding forest trees ; a 
low-roofed, unpainted cabin, through whose loosely 
weather-boarded walls the wind gained easy access ; 
bare rooms, only redeemed from repulsiveness by the 
touch of a refined woman’s hand ; a rough picket fence 
inclosing a strip of new ground, where a few gaudy 
zenias and other hardy annuals contended feebly with 
the prevailing browns and grays, and you have Olga’s 
home. 

It was Saturday. The same Saturday that had been 
so suddenly tinged with romantic interest for Ginia by 
her introduction to Dr. Maddox. The days of the 


A UNT JUD Y LITTLE. 


291 


week were all pretty much alike at the Hall, but 
with Olga and her small establishment Saturday 
was a day possessed of its own peculiar activities and 
excitements. That was the day when all work came to 
a sudden halt, independently of the most urgent need. 

When the whirring of the gin-bands and the short, 
quick snorting of the little steam-engine and the 
busy buzzing of the saws, as they cut the seed from 
the lint, grew silent and motionless, and the gin-house, 
about which all the activities of the plantation clustered 
at this season of the year, was deserted. When the 
loads of ungathered corn or fodder lay in heaps about 
the fields, taking their chances for rain or theft or any 
other mishap that might befall before Monday. When 
the shops at Weston would begin to fill up early in 
the morning with a swarm of ignorant, careless, rollick- 
ing customers, ready to barter away all their interests in 
the crops not yet harvested, for the immediate possession 
of the gaudy wares in the Weston shops that repre- 
sented to them all the world could offer of luxury and 
elegance, or for another quart of vile whisky. Blind to 
the fact that reckoning day must come, or that the 
cold wet winter was upon them when work and pay 
must ^11 come to a stand-still and they must get through 
the dreary interval between as best they could with an 
empty larder and empty pockets. When the women 
busied themselves with preparing their finery for 
meetin’ ” next day. It was Olga’s most serene day 


292 


WITHOUT BLEMISH, 


when the weather was fine, for then she and Shep 
seemed to have the whole fragrant world to them- 
selves and she would wander miles through the leaf- 
less woods, luxuriously rustling the dead leaves under 
her feet ; now stopping to gather the frost-ripened 
persimmons, that lay in bruised sweetness upon the 
ground ; now startling a drove of plump speckled pigs 
from their pre-empted rights to the fallen pecans; 
now gathering armfuls of golden-rod and purple iron- 
weed or searching for ferns in the damp places ; now 
sitting motionless on a stump to watch the gambols of 
her clumsy attendant. It seemed to Olga that the 
broadest charities, the keenest longings, the loftiest 
desires, and the sweetest subtleties of her life came to 
her in these woods, where the foot of man seldom trod, 
but where God seemed to come nearer to His lonely 
child and lay His consecrating touch upon her afresh 
and the angels of love ministered unto her. 

But there was no rambling possible to-day. The 
woods were bare and the leaves were sodden, and the 
rain dripped, dripped, dripped from the eaves of the 
cabin roof. She could see old Reuben, out there in 
the rain, piling the cut fire-wood up on the gallery, so 
that to-morrow, when they should all have gone.away 
to “ meetinV’ she should not suffer with the cold. 
She could see Rose, flitting busily from the dining- 
room to the little shed-room kitchen with the loaves of 
hot light-bread and the broiled chickens, and the sweet 


A UNT JUD Y LITTLE. 


293 


potato pies, that were to furnish her with her cold Sun- 
day dinner, when Rose, too, should have gone to 
meeting and left the house with no one but herself 
and Shep in it. They took good care of her. Rose and 
Reuben, but try as she might the barriers had never 
been broken down between herself and — her mother.? 
Rose had assumed her own position and maintained it 
stubbornly, and Olga was acquiescent. 

‘^You don’t owe me nothin’, honey. It’s me that’s 
done you all the harm. Be good to me as you kin, 
don’t hate me no more than you can help. Let me 
do for you, but don’t never try to treat me as your 
equal. I ain’t your equal, my sweety, and nothin’ 
you can do’ll make me so. Now then we’ll be happier 
that’s settled.” 

So, gentle consideration on the one part, and eager 
service on the other marked their daily intercourse. And 
was Olga contented? Did no bright dream of the. 
might-have-been ever run counter to the dark realities 
of her life, contracting her tender heart with quick 
spasms of pain ? Did no rebellious murmurings against 
the decree that had allotted her time and opportunity 
to cultivate her most refined tastes, to acquire habits 
that were now a mockery, to form affections that were 
now crimes, never tincture with morbidness the long 
reveries of her leisure hours ? Did no outcry against 
the burden that was almost too heavy to be borne ever 
escape upon the silent air of the autumn woods and 


294 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


flutter heavenward to the throne of grace ? Ah ! who 
shall say? But if they did, He who seeth not as man 
sees, doubtless pitied, forgave and comforted ! 

It had grown quite dark out there in the wet 
woods, and the gloomy vision of the rain-soaked road 
was shut out by the closed shutters. The sound of 
Reuben piling the wood on the gallery had stopped. 
He had brought in the final armful and piled it on the 
stout iron fire-dogs, and it was now crackling and flam- 
ing in the big open fire-place, the sap singing with the 
joyousness of some long imprisoned thing, glad of 
escape. Rose’s coffee-mill added its harsh rhythm to 
the crackling of the wood. It was too late to read 
and too early for lamps. The comfort of the hour was 
sufficient unto itself. Shep lay on the deer-skin rug 
at her feet, with his great human eyes turning now on 
her, now on the sparkling flames as they danced and 
leaped in the cavernous chimney place. Into this 
serenity a querulous voice was intruded : “ Is you busy. 
Miss Olgie ? ” This was the universal plantation substi- 
tute for the more ceremonious knock of civilization. No 
answer was required or expected. The questioner 
advanced, apologizing for the muddy state of her shoes, 
which she planted squarely upon the deer-skin rug close 
to Shep’s disgusted nozzle. 

“ Ah ! Aunt Judy, is it you ? It’s late for you to be 
out on foot such a bad night, too,” says Olga, not 
overjoyed at the interruption. 


A [/NT JUDY LITTLE. 


295 


I b’leeves you, honey, it is late, and it is a bad 
night, and I is too ole an’ rheumatic t’ be foolin’ ’bout 
in dis yer mud, but w’at you think er dat?” she con- 
cluded, somewhat inconsequently, as she suddenly and 
clumsily dropped upon one knee, causing Shep to 
yield her dignified possession of the disputed rug, and 
to betake himself sulkily to the furthest corner of the 
room, while the old lady spread open on the deer-skin, 
for Olga’s inspection, a bandanna handkerchief, the 
knotted corners of which she loosened with spiteful 
energy. 

“ What you think er dat ?” Aunt Judy asked again, 
folding her arms impressively across her ample bosom as 
she settled into a more comfortable position on the rug. 

“ I think they are buttons ! ” says Olga, slightly 
wondering. 

“ I b’leeves yer, dey is buttons.” 

“ And quite a good many of them.” 

I b’leeves you, ’bout a peck on ’em.” 

Olga laughed. “Oh, no. Aunt Judy, let’s call it 
three quarts.” 

“Not a button under a peck, an’ t’ain’ no laughin’ 
matter, chile.” 

“ But what do you want with so many. Aunt Judy ? ” 

“ I b’leeves you, w’at does I want wid so many ? 
Wot does I want wid enny on ’em, less’n t’were a half 
dozen black bone ones to put on de boys’ breeches.” 

“ Then what did you get them for ? ” 


296 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


I b’leeves yer, w’at did I get ’em for. Kase dat 
fool nigger er mine, Henry Little, can’t go whar dere’s 
whiskey widout drinkin’ it, en he can’t drink it widout 
losin’ de little senses he’s horned wid, en dem sto’- 
keepers out to Wes’on done learnt by dis time dat ef 
ders anythin’ on der she’fs dey can’t git rid uv, er in 
der drawers er der show cases, all dey got t’ do is to 
git my fool nigger drunk, en he’ll spend de las’ cent 
he’s got in dis worl’ en giv’ er morgige on he’s crap en 
mine too, t’bleege ’em w’en he’s drunk, en dey promises 
him mo’ whisky ef he do what dey tell ’im. How 
nigger gwine t’git ahead at dis rate I like t’know ? ” 

“ How, indeed ? ” echoed Olga, warmed to earnest 
advocacy of the old woman’s case, as against the wily 
sharpers who beguiled her husband out of all his 
earnings, and his senses too. 

“ Dat was my money Henry spent on dem trashy but- 
tons. My two dollars en a half dat I sol’ chickens t’de 
boat wid las’ week. An’ w’en he was gwine out to Wes’on 
dis mornin’ I sez, I did. Miss Ollie, now Henry Idttle, 
don’ you go en make a fool uv yo’seff en drink my 
money all up (you see, honey, it were so muddy, I 
didn’t keer to go sloshin’ up t’ town myseff kase 
t’morrer’s brother Rush Mo’ton’s fun’al, en I want to 
keep my w’ite petticut t’ whar dere), I wants you to 
buy me a p’ar uv dem yeller silkmits to w’ar t’ brother 
Rush’s fun’al, en two yards er cotton checks, en a bar 
of yeller soap, en a packidge of cookin’ soda ” 


A UNT JUD Y LITTLE, 


297 


“ And didn’t he bring you any thing you sent for ? ” 
asks Olga, breaking in on the endless enumeration. 

Aunt Judy rose to her feet and struck a tragic 
attitude, with one arm outstretched toward the buttons : 

‘‘ Dat’s w’at he brung me ! Bar’s whar my money 
gone to.” 

“ It’s a shame,” said Olga so feelingly that the tears 
welled into Aunt Judy’s flashing eyes, and her anger 
was quenched in self-pity. 

“ I b’leeves you, it is a shame. Ole Mars wouldn’ 
a’lowed a parsel uv Jew shoppers to settle down on his 
plantation to squeeze de life out’n his folks. W’at his 
son about ? dat he can’t stay on de place en try to 
keep things straight a little. Whose gin but Hardlines’ 
gin is swarmin’ Avid de shop-keepers, a-Avaitin’ to grab 
de cotton as soon as it come from de press, en haul it, 
en ship it, en let de folks dat’s toiled en moiled over it 
all de year whistle fer der pains ? T’ain’t right. Miss 
Ollie, t’ain’t right ; an’ if wuss comes to wuss,” the 
old woman’s voice sank to a mysterious whisper, '' you 
’member my words, if wuss comes to wuss. Mister Eustis 
’ll hev hisseff t’blame for er heap ov it. I’m his friend, 
an’ I’m yo’ friend. I’m everbody’s frien%” she added 
comprehensively, “ but niggers is got t’ live, en dey ’ll 
do it by hook er by crook, ef dar ain’ no better way.” 

A vague threat seemed to run through Judy’s closing 
words, but Olga could make nothing especial out of 
them. 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


298 

“ Can’t you trade your buttons off, Aunt Judy? ” she 
said by way of bringing her back to the text. 

Judy’s face brightened. “I knowed it,” she said 
triumphantly ; “ I tole de folks Miss Olgie would h’op 
a ole ooman out. Now, honey, ef yo’ll just take dat 
peck er buttons off’n my hands. I’ll make a rale good 
bargain wid yer. Dey’s rale good buttons, dat dey is. 
Some, sho’ nough, stylish ones ’mongst ’em. I’ll give 
you de lot fur a cup er sugar, en a pint er rice, en a bar 
er washin’ soap, en a leetle pinch er green tea, en ’bout 
er spoonful er soda, en, well, I say, honey, you couldn’ 
let a ole ooman have a slice er ham, could yer, en a 
little piece er cheese. En I say. Miss Olgie,” calling 
after her, as Olga started toward the store-room to 
hide her amusement and fill the varied order, ‘‘ dem’s 
rale good buttons ; just fro’ in any ole shawl you’s 
done wid, please, ma’am, t’morrer’s brother Rush 
Mo’toii’s fun’al, en I’d lak to look lak I knowed w’at’s 
w’at, you know, honey.” 

When Olga returned with the numerous packages done 
up in newspaper Aunt Judy was on her knees before 
the buttons, busy making selections ; she looked up 
quite unabashed. 

“ I’se just pickin’ out a lot er de black bone ones, 
honey, dat’ll do t’ go on de boys’ breeches. I’ll tote 
dem home in my pocket ; en now, ef you’ll empty de 
buttons out I’ll tie de res’ uv my passels up in de 
hank’cher, en blessed a bite uvany uv it, will Henry 


A UNT JUD Y LITTLE. 


299 


Little git. De law!” Aunt Judy brought her hand 
out of the pocket where she had carried it full of but- 
tons, with a letter in it. Now you see Providence 
’spired me t’ put dem bone buttons in my pocket. Ef I 
had’n’ I’d ’a’ carried Miss Olgie’s letter all de way back 
home wid me. Henry brought dis from Wes’on for 
you, honey, en it’s a Ian’s wonder he did’n’ lose it, for 
it wur in his hat en he wur reelin’ wen he got home. 
Well, now, it’s time I was makin’ tracks fur home. 
Thank you, missy, it’s real clever uv you t’ holp a ole 
woman out dis way, but dem’s good buttons. Miss Ollie, 
I don’t know but you got a leetle de bes’ uv de trade, 
but I can’t eat buttons en I kin eat rice,” with which 
incontrovertible statement Aunt Judy took her de- 
parture, leaving Olga to the undisturbed enjoyment 
of her letter. 

It was from Miss Denton. In it she told her that 
she would be with her “ bag and baggage ” about two 
weeks from date. “ We need each other, dearie, and 
two happier old maids it will be hard to find than you 
and I will be when we join forces to make a home for 
ourselves, the world forgetting, by the world forgot.” 
And it was only by the burst of grateful tears that 
swelled up from her tired heart, in reading these closing 
words in the dear little woman’s letter, that Olga knew 
how passionately she had been craving human com- 
panionship and human sympathy through all these 
desolate days of mute endurance. 


300 


WITHOUT BLEMISH, 


She wished Miss Denton were there that very night 
so she could repeat to her Judy’s vague threat or warn- 
ing, which was it meant to be? and take counsel with 
her about it. 

If the worst comes to the worst, Mr. Eustiswill 
have himself to blame.” 

What danger was threatening Eustis ? What plan 
of evil was hatching in the ignorant heads of the people 
on his place? These creatures were slow to wrath, 
but when once moved, acted with the blind fury of 
goaded brutes. If she could only warn him or ward it 
off him or get hold of any thing tangible, so she might 
reason with these people, who were so steeped in moral 
ignorance that they could reason for themselves but 
from one standpoint and that a purely selfish one. 

Whatever it was, for Eustis’s sake she must exercise 
her acutest vigilance. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


STOLEN JOY. 


DEEP abiding gladness filled Olga’s heart when 



Miss Denton was actually seated on the opposite 
side of the fire-place from her. “ Come to stay,” to enter 
into her life and be a part of it as she hoped, and as the 
little old lady said melodramatically : until death did 
them part.” 

A restless fluttering sensation possessed poor Rose’s 
entire being over the same event, and kept her hover- 
ing with nervous ofliciousness and hungry ears about 
the fire, that was already doing all that was in the 
power of blazing wood to do to keep the interior of the 
rude cabin ablaze with light and cheer. 

That insensate woman in the chair there, maunder- 
ing on about the bad roads and the rough springless 
wagon ride that had left every bone in her body ach- 
ing, and the stupidity of the boat’s captain, in putting 
her off at Hardlines landing instead of Weston, had 
come straight from the atmosphere made sacred in 
Rose’s estimation, because her beautiful child had her 
being in it. Would Ginia’s precious name ever drop 
from those garrulous lips? 


302 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


She seized the hearth-broom in her worn, restless 
hands and began afresh to brush the red-brick hearth 
that was already guiltless of ashes or speck. Any 
thing to keep near the talker. Miss Denton spread 
two ample shoes close in front of the fire. The steam 
rose slowly from their damp soles. “ Let me fetch 
you a pair of dry shoes and stockings, Miss Denton,” 
says Rose, eagerly, but Miss Denton declined, ** she 
would dry” quick enough before such a blaze. But 
the offer had served to loosen the tongue that had 
cloven dry and hot against the roof of Rose’s 
mouth. 

And how did you leave the folks over in the hills? 
All the folks, ole Mrs. Stanhope, and Mr. Eustis and — 
and Miss Ginia ? ” 

“ All quite well, thank you, Rose,” says Miss Denton, 
adding for Olga’s benefit, “ and all sent love to you, 
dear.” 

Olga’s smile was a trifle bitter, but her “ thank you,” 
was simply spoken. “ I wonder if Ginia misses me 
much ? ” she asks wistfully, her soft eyes dropping 
upon the dancing flames. 

“ I am afraid Ginia’s a selfish little puss,” says Miss 
Denton carelessly, and Rose turned from the fire-place 
to go back to the kitchen with murderous feelings in 
her heart, so she lost the next sentence, — “at the best, 
but I do believe she is genuinely devoted to you, and I 
think under different circumstances, I mean under cer- 


STOLEN JOY. 


303 


tain influences you know, she may develop into a very 
affectionate sort of a woman. There is a great deal 
good in her, but she is frivolous and weak. By the 
way, Fm afraid her extreme prettiness is doing serious 
damage — 

Olga’s heart stood still. Would it ever beat again 
and allow her foolish tongue to ask the question trem- 
bling upon it ? Fortunately Miss Denton resumed of her 
own accord, after making a careful examination of the 
edges of her damp skirts — 

'‘Yes, Ginia has made a conquest ! caught a beau! 
Guess who ! ” 

Rose, setting the tea-table just behind their backs, 
for Olga’s two-roomed cabin called for concentration, 
paused with her hands full of knives and forks and 
spoons. Not through the clatter of table-setting would 
she risk losing one item about her idol, her beautiful 
darling, her child that sat in the high places of the 
land. 

“ Mrs. Stanhope’s son ! ” says Olga, offering her guess 
in a low and steady voice, but her eyes never left the 
dancing flames, and her slender fingers wound them- 
selves tightly together. 

“ Eustis Stanhope ! Margaret Stanhope’s son 1 The 
last of the blue-blood Stanhopes fall in love with a — a 
— ” Miss Denton paused in some confusion. Olga’s 
face was aflame. But not as she fancied by reason of 
the slight put upon the charity girls whom Mrs. Stan- 


3^4 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


hope had befriended. How beautiful the child looked 
wjth that rosy flush dyeing her smooth dark cheeks ! 
with the dancing flames reflected back from her shin- 
ing eyes ! with her full red lips slightly parted in the 
agitation of her resentment, was it ? On the contrary, it 
was an ecstatic moment to Olga. A moment in which 
she lost sight of the cabin’s rough walls ; lost hearing 
for Miss Denton’s murmured apology ; lost the memory 
of every thing, but of that never to be forgotten moment 
out yonder on the crumbling treacherous river bank, 
when she had been held in a passionate embrace by a 
pair of strong arms; when, for one wildly sweet second 
her head had rested on Eustis Stanhope’s breast ; when 
he was not the representative of Stanhope Hall and 
she was not old Dora’s grand-daughter. No, then 
they were simply two loving hearts that had been swept 
into close clinging contact by the swift rushing current 
of destiny. True, it was only to be swept asunder as 
suddenly, like the helpless floating inanimate objects in 
the dark flowing river by which they stood, that came 
eddying and circling about each other for a fleet while, 
only to be rudely parted by some black intervening 
obstacle and separated forever to float in divided 
currents down to one ingulfing sea. 

“ No, indeed,” she came out of her trance to hear 
Miss Denton say, I don’t think Eustis Stanhope will 
ever fall in love with any body. He is settling into an old 
bachelor groove very fast. But my precious Robert, 


STOLEN JOY, 


305 


that I thought was so terribly sensible and really felt 
quite secure in entrusting the entire world’s welfare to, 
has fallen hopelessly and helplessly in love with Ginia’s 
eyes and her playing and her — oh ! well, the dear only 
knows what does regulate these things. And Robert, 
you know, quite prides himself on his superiority to 
any conventional considerations. I don’t know that I 
am putting it quite amiably, and, as long as I’ve given 
up the old house for all and good, I suppose I ought to 
be thankful enough to have him form such respectable 
plans for the future as an early marriage. It sounds 
like romantic nonsense to me, but he declares he is 
going to supervise her studies until she is eighteen and 
then marry her.” 

Around and around the table Rose walked as on 
sublimated air, now moving a fork, now wiping a cup, 
now twitching the cloth mechanically, now taking up 
something quite aimlessly, only to put it down in 
the same place. How wondrous sweet it all sounded 
in her ears ! Her child carefully cared for, nurtured and 
cultured ! Her child safe in the honorable haven of 
matrimony, before she was well out of her teens ! Her 
nameless offspring — Mrs. Dr. Maddox ! Miss Denton’s 
steady flow of chat glided into another channel. It 
was no longer of any interest to Rose. She slipped 
out into the kitchen and presently the sound of her 
coffee mill penetrated to the little sitting-room. She 
was singing a lusty ditty to its accompaniment. 


3o6 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


To-morrow is your birthday, dearie, isn’t it,” said 
Miss Denton, making a trip to her trunks that had been 
placed against the wall in Olga’s bed-room and coming 
back with the box in her hands wrapped about with a 
towel. 

Yes,” said Olga bitterly, “ but why should I remem- 
ber it, unless indeed as an occasion for sack-cloth and 
ashes?” 

Does — does Rose ever talk about the time she left 
you at the asylum? Did she ever speak of leaving 
any thing there with you ? We mustn’t be afraid to talk 
plainly to each other, dear.” 

“We never talk of the past at all ! Indeed she shrinks 
with such evident pain from any reminder, from me, of 
our mutual relations, that we have settled it as you see. 
I teach her, or try to teach her, to read and to think 
for herself, but she wearies like a dull child. She lis- 
tens with interest when I read to her, and the Bible 
stories seem to hold her attention, but she will never 
be any thing more than a dull-witted, ignorant, docile 
child. But I think she is happy. I hope she is. I often 
hear her singing over her work as you hear her now. I 
wish I could ever feel like doing it. She often tells me 
I’ve been the cause of making her perfectly happy.” 

Miss Denton was planning a surprise. She timed it so 
as to unwind the towel just as Rose’s thin stooping form 
appeared once more in the door-way. She placed the 
box conspicuously on the center table between herself 


STOLEN JOY, 


307 


and Olga. Her piercing eyes were fixed upon the 
woman, but her words were addressed to the girl. 

“ Mrs. Stanhope told me, my dear, to say to you, 
that this box was given her at the asylum, as belonging 
to you. That the woman who left it there, your nurse, 
said it was to be given to you when you were grown.” 

Rose’s face grew as livid as its nature would admit 
of. Her fingers loosened about the plate of biscuit 
she was bringing in and dropped it noisily on the table. 
Olga seized the box eagerly. Miss Denton’s eyes never 
left Rose’s face. She read agitation there. (Ginia had 
gone into town surreptitiously and had the picture 
repaired — the box was in perfect order and tied up as 
before. She had brought it promptly at Mrs. Stanhope’s 
demand when Miss Denton had come to say good-by.) 
Rose slipped noiselessly out of the room to gain time to 
think! Suppose thisbox should reveal the truth ! Should 
contain the story of Olga’s parentage, where then would 
be her fair vision of happiness for Ginia ? In her guilt and 
in her ignorance she never once paused to reflect that 
suspicion had never yet pointed to the fair faced girl 
who had borrowed her great beauty from a remoter 
ancestor than father or grandfather. Like the bird 
that flits before the wayfarer warding off danger from 
the nest whose existence is unsuspected. Rose spent 
her life sheltering her young whom none knew for 
hers. Her knees trembled under her as Olga’s soft 
clear voice came out to her. 


3o8 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


Rose ! Come, please ! ’’ 

Rose’s refuge at every approach of danger was in a 
lie ! She would acknowledge to the box, if that was 
what they were calling her for, and swear that she put 
every thing in it, hoping they might be useful to her 
little girl. But suppose there was a letter ! 

But there was no letter! Crumpled in the folds of 
the silk dress in which Virginia had bedecked herself 
that rainy day, lay forgotten the faded little d’oyley 
that wrapped in jealous secrecy the letter written, in 
the long ago by a dying mother, striving to project some 
help and comfort into the far future for her desolate 
little one. 

She stood stolidly by Olga’s side, as the knots of 
the twine strings were loosened one by one and the 
box top yielded to the girl’s eager pressure. 

Do you remember this box, Rose ? ” There was 
a ring of tense anxiety in Olga’s voice, as she asked 
this question. It seemed so incomprehensible a thing to 
her, that this poor slattern, with the dulled intellect 
and the almost animal sluggishness of comprehension, 
could be her mother, that, in spite of old Dora’s vivid 
assertion of kinship ; in spite of Rose’s remorseful 
corroboration of her claims ; in spite of her own 
renunciation and acceptance, she sometimes doubted 
and dared to hope. She knew now by the sick revul- 
sion of her soul from hope to despair, as Rose answered 
sullenly but readily, how strong that hope had been. 


STOLEN JOY. 


309 


“ Of co’se I remember the box, my sweety ! what 
for no ? ” 

“ You left it at the asylum, then ? ” 

Of co’se. Who else was there to leave it ? I thought 
the things in it might come handy to you w’en you 
was growed up to be a lady, you see. You know, my 
sweety, it wor’n’t none of my doings that you wos took 
away from the ’sylum where I knowed the folks would 
be good to you, and wouldn’t make no difference 
betwix’ you and the other chill’n — ” 

I know, I know,” says Olga hastily. What use in 
going back over the past. Ah ! if Ginia had only con- 
sented to have come away without her! If she had 
never left the asylum ! ” 

“Then Rose will remember all the things in the 
box,” says Miss Denton, laying her train with what she 
regarded as masterly strategy, not taking into account 
that she was merely experimenting in duplicity, whereas 
Rose had been nourished on it all her life. 

“ How you s’pose I’m goin’ t’ carry a lot of gim- 
cracks in my head all these years. Miss Denton ? 
Haven’t I gone through enough to make a woman for- 
get her own name since I put that box at the ’sylum in 
Cleveland ? ” 

“ My poor Rose, I expect you have,” says Olga 
soothingly. Her hand rested on the heavy ambro- 
type case. She pressed the spring and the two sides 
fell back, showing in either lid the soft oval face of a 


310 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


beautiful, but intensely sad looking woman, and of a 
black browed man from whose bold eyes and sneering 
lips Olga turned away in involuntary loathing, to fasten 
her surprised eyes on Rose. Miss Denton sat close at 
her elbow looking over one shoulder, while Rose looked 
over the other. 

‘‘Who is that bad looking man. Rose, and that 
sweet sad lady? And what are they doing in my 
box ? ” 

This short period of inspection had been long enough 
to prepare Rose’s ready imagination for the test. 

“ Them’s pictures I thought a heap of, my sweety, 
oncet upon a time, though of course they’s nothing but 
so much rubbish to you. That’s Mr. Major Wash- 
burne, that I went up the river with the first time I 
left you, Miss Denton, during the war, and his wife. 
She was a mighty sweet lady, but sickly, and I tended 
her on the boat. She give me that picture, because 
she said she didn’t want no picture that made her 
husband look so fierce.” 

This was not all pure invention. It was simply a 
clever adjustment of some half-forgotten experiences 
of Rose’s nomadic days to the exigencies of the pres- 
ent. She had an equally plausible description of each 
article as Olga brought it to view. The box was empty 
finally, and they were no wiser, nor was any one the 
happier, unless, indeed, it was Rose. 

“Was it worth hoarding all these years?” asked 


STOLEN JOY, 31 1 

Olga, smiling sadly into the loving sympathetic face 
so close to her. 

To which Miss Denton replied with deceitful cheer- 
fulness : 

“ Well, we will have to take out the pretty little 
gold watch and call it your birth-day present.” 

Olga looked at her indignantly. '‘And this from 
you ? ” 

" Mercy, child ! what have I done to make you look 
so savage ? ” 

" Did that poor woman (Rose had gladly retreated 
once more), ever come by any thing honestly? ” 

" Oh ! now, my dear child, that is entirely too sweep- 
ing. Of course she did. Don’t you know that Rose 
lived a great many years as the wife of a bar- 
ber”— 

But a groan from Olga made her pause. The poor 
child’s head had fallen upon her clasped hands and hot 
tears were trickling between the slim fingers. 

" Oh ! the disgrace of it ! Oh ! the burden of it ! 
Oh ! the cruelty of it ! ” she moaned over and over 
again, until Miss Denton, gathering her close to her 
great warm heart, sobbed with her and murmured 
words of endearment into the desolate ears and loved 
her and comforted her. 

Miss Denton was given to asking straightforward 
questions with a bluntness that would have misled 
those who did not know about that great warm heart. 


3t2 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


She asked one this night, later on, when she and Olga 
were preparing to go to bed. 

Do you see any thing of the T rowbridges, child ? ” 

“ Mrs. Trowbridge made several ineffectual efforts 
to be good to me when I first settled here, but I knew 
that she was under a misapprehension, and I would not 
avail myself of her kindness. She thinks of me as a 
quixotic girl who is carrying out a fancied mission of 
regeneration for an inferior race.” 

“ Humph! ” Miss Denton ejaculated, as she plaited 
her hair for the night with active fingers. “ You know 
we are sort of kin.” 

“ Who ? you and Mrs. Trowbridge ? ” 

“ No. Waring and I.” 

I never see him any nearer than the road,” says 
Olga, icily. He rides by on his way to Hardlines 
sometimes. He attends to the place, you know.” 

*‘Yes, I know.” 

And this brought Aunt Judy Little’s vague threat 
back into Olga’s mind. Strange how the words 
haunted her: 

“ If the worst comes to the worst, Mr. Eustis will 
have nobody but himself to thank for it.” 

She would not tell Miss Denton about it to-night. 
The day had been full enough of unusual excitement 
for all of them. To-morrow would be time enough ! 
A little more desultory talk and then — Shep was the 
only thing left awake. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


TO-MORROW AND TO-MORROW. 


B ut with the return of day-light and the unusual cir- 
cumstance of having a more companionable 
friend at hand than Rose, and the novelty of discussing 
her plans for the future enlargement of her night-school, 
and the starting of a sewing-school, Olga once more 
forgot the old woman’s croaking words. 

There was so much to do that first day ! There was 
all Miss Denton’s luggage and baggage to be assigned 
to permanent positions. There was the lightest corner 
in the little sitting-room to be cleared out for the 
accommodation of the dear old lady’s writing desk and 
sewing machine and private easy chair. 

“ Miss Denton’s corner,” said Olga authoritatively, to 
Rose, as they planted the best rug in the house before 
the big easy chair. “ Aren’t you glad she’s come to 
live with us. Rose ? ” 

I am for true, my chile. Miss Denton’s a good 
woman. An’ she’s a smart one. She’s got all that’s in 
the books right at her finger ends. Learnin’s a great 
thing, ain’t it, sweety ? *’ It was a wistful question, 
rather than an assertion, and Olga answered with 


314 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


infinite gentleness, “Goodness is a better thing, Rose. 
And you know," she says, always ready with good seed 
to drop upon this stony ground, “ if we can not all be 
learned, we can all be good. God won’t ask how 
much have you learned, only, how much have you 
loved when He calls us home." 

“ But the goodness would come the easier for the 
knowin’, wouldn’t it, honey 1 You reckon He’ll be as 
hard on us in judgment day, us — not you and her but 
the colored folks — that just sinned because we didn’t 
know sin was sinful, as He will on them that’s had the 
books and the preachers all to themselves for so long? 
Oh ! my chile, you studies your Bible ’nough to find 
out what He does mean and what He does want. Is He 
goin’ to punish me in the lake of everlastin’ fire for 
doin’ one thing way back yonder that’s brought misery 
on so many folks and ain’ done with it yet, when 
nary voice was ever raised to say, ‘ Rose, don’t do 
that, it’ll make the Lord your Maker angry ? ’ Is He, 
Olga, my chile ? " 

A violent fit of coughing checked the rapid flow of 
her words. Olga had never before seen her so 
wrought up. She was at a loss to account for it. The 
woman was evidently suffering under tremendous 
excitement of some sort. Her normal condition was 
that of almost sluggish acceptance of her fate as it was, 
tinctured with remorseful affection for Olga, for whose 
physical comfort she exerted her best efforts and 


TO MORROW AND TO-MORROW. 315 

toward whom she maintained an attitude of adoring 
gratitude. 

“ You are not well this morning. You look feverish.” 
(She did indeed look worn and haggard in the extreme.) 
“You ought to lie down, Rose.” 

But Rose answered petulantly. “ Yes, I am well. 
There ain’t nothing in this world the matter with me 
only sometimes my head gets to aching with all the 
fret that’s tangled up in it. I wish I’d had the show 
in my young days that the folks’s young ones has 
to-day. They’ll all know how to think for themselves, 
them that’s growin’ up, and if they turn away from the 
light and prefers the dark, it will be of their own free 
wills. Chile,” with violent change of subject and manner, 
“ I don’t feel called on to look after w’ite folks’ busi- 
ness, but you write to Mr. Eustis and tell him things 
ain’ goin’ straight on Hardlines. I ain’ goin’ to tell 
you nothin’ more but just that much. And that’s 
enough to fix me wid the folks if they knew. But I 
can’t find it in my heart not to give leastways a hint to 
them, for they’ve been good to — to — you and to Miss 
Ginia, the Ha41 folks have.” 

Through the window she saw Miss Denton, who had 
wandered out into the little yard to locate a poultry 
house, with Reuben’s assistance, approaching. She 
looked into Olga’s face anxiously, “ You won’t tell on 
me, honey? The folks would conjure me ’fore 
to-morrow night, if theyknowed.” 


3i6 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


Rose disappeared through the back door as Miss 
I>enton entered through the front. As she settled 
herself into her corner, Olga fluttering about the room, 
giving those nice finishing touches that Rose always 
left to her, repeated the substance of what she had just 
heard, supplementing it by an account of Aunt Judy’s 
vague warning. 

“ My dear,” said Miss Denton oracularly, if you 
had lived in the South as long as I have, you’d let such 
nonsense go in at one ear and out at the other. The 
memory of man goeth not to the contrary when such 
vague and vengeful mutterings have not got afloat 
whenever things were not going to suit the people on 
the place. As I understand it, your friend Judy’s hus- 
band had gone to Weston, got tipsy, brought her 
back a peck of buttons for which she had no earthly use 
and which had an irritating effect on the old lady’s 
nerves, hence those mutterings which are kept cut and 
dried for all occasions of discontent. In their ignorance 
and child-like helplessness the colored people hold the 
nearest white people morally responsible for every 
mishap that befalls them, from overflows down to 
buttons.” 

And are they not so to a greater degree than they 
are willing to acknowledge to themselves?” asks Olga 
gravely. “ Is it not Mr. Stanhope’s fault that his gin 
swarms with merciless creditors, ready to pounce upon 
the last bale of cotton, or the last sack of seed that the 


TO-MORROW AND TO-MORROW, 317 

laborer can lay claim to, after his lease for the land is 
secured ? Do you wonder much at their discourage- 
ment, Miss Denton?” 

“ Well, but, my dear Olga, you would not have them 
shirk a just debt. You don’t want to civilize them up to 
the fine point of repudiation, do you? That is reserved 
for States and politicians, yet awhile,” says Miss Den- 
ton with merry scorn in her eyes. She, too, regarded 
Olga as bent upon establishing Utopia on impossible 
ground. 

‘‘No,” says Olga, with sweet seriousness of voice and 
eye, “ I would not have them shirk a just debt, but I 
would have them protected against the incurring of 
foolish ones.” 

“But their own common sense ought to be their 
protection in such matters.” 

“ Common sense totally unenlightened either by pre- 
cept or example, would not carry any of us to the pin- 
nacle of earthly wisdom. They are nothing but a horde 
of grown up children so far as worldly wisdom is con- 
cerned, before whom temptation is placed in its most 
alluring form, and toward which they are urged by the 
most unscrupulous leaders. If a man has a political 
or a commercial end to gain with one of these poor, 
untaught citizens, he manages him through his appe- 
tites and his weaknesses, and when his end is accom- 
plished, throws the useless tool aside, with no thought 
nor care for the rough and jagged edge he may have put 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


318 

upon it. But some one else will suffer from that rough 
and jagged edge, Miss Denton.” 

Miss Denton made a wry face : “ My dear child, 

how exceedingly croaky you do sound. What are you 
going to do about it ? ” 

What am I going to do about it?” said Olga in 
a burst of passionate reproach. “ What indeed can a 
feeble, powerless girl do ? Rather ask what are the 
men of the country going to do about it ? Why are 
they leaving the task of educating the negroes to 
people almost as ignorant as themselves, whose one 
inducement to take the position is to secure the fast 
accumulating school taxes as their emolument ? Why 
do they wink at, if not encourage, the drainage of their 
plantation revenues into the vile little shops that dot 
the land over like plague spots? You ask in sarcasm 
what am I going to do about it, and I answer you in 
helpless seriousness, nothing! Nothing but to try to 
teach those who are growing up to place a truer esti- 
mate upon their own abilities and responsibilities as 
human beings with souls to save, and prospective so- 
cial importance to be prepared for. Nothing, except to 
work with them, and pray for them that God will lead 
them not into temptation, but will deliver them from 
evil.” 

Mercy, what a pair of revolutionizers, or reformers, 
or enthusiasts, no offense, my dear, you and my Bob 
are, to be sure! You are a pair of self-constituted 


TO-MORROW AND TO-MORROW. 319 

young Atlases, and I’m sure I wish you joy of your 
burden. Now then about our chicken house ! As a 
rule, raising poultry on a plantation is somewhat dis- 
couraging. These dear clumsy proteges of yours have 
peculiarly dense views concerning the rights of prop- 
erty in chickens. They can always grasp the idea of 
meum, but seldom of tuum. But we must risk some- 
thing. They would have to be the blackest of ingrates 
to rob your hen-roost.” 

Olga laughed indulgently, and permitted herself to 
be drawn into an animated discussion about the hen- 
house, Reuben being brought in to contribute his quota 
of advice and experience. And so, the brightest and 
shortest day she had yet spent in the cabin in the woods 
drew to its close, and night shut them in once more 
from an outlook, which, at its best, could never be 
other than gloomy. 

When Rose brought in the lighted lamp, and placed 
it on the center table, her face was white and scared, 
and her voice sounded hoarse with excitement, as she 
bent toward Olga saying : 

“ Hardlines’ gin-house’s on fire ! I told you so ! ” 

The two women were upon their feet and out on the 
front gallery in a second. Not a word was spoken 
between them for many minutes. Over the crowns of 
the leafless trees they could see the lurid flames dancing 
and leaping up against the black background of the 
starless sky ! They could hear the crackling of the dry 


320 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


and combustible wood of which the building was com- 
posed, and the falling of the heavier timbers, as they 
quickly burned through. Along the rain-soaked road 
dark forms on panting mules, which were urged for- 
ward by blow and word, sped by in ever increasing 
numbers. It was the people from Bendemma hasten- 
ing to the scene of excitement. The sound of a foot- 
fall near at hand caught Olga’s ear. 

** Is that you. Uncle Reuben?” she asked, leaning 
over the gallery toward the sound. 

“ Hit’s me, missy,” Reuben answered out of the dark. 

“ Saddle your mule and my pony immediately,” she 
said imperatively, “ and bring them round to the steps. 
Make haste please. Uncle Reuben,” gliding into sudden 
entreaty. 

“ Olga, what are you daring now ? ” said Miss Denton, 
clutching her by the arm, as she turned hurriedly 
to enter the house. 

I am daring nothing. But I am going up to the 
house at Hardlines. They will fire it next. Don’t de- 
tain me, please, I want to get my riding skirt and hat 
by the time Reuben saddles the pony.” 

But Miss Denton maintained a vigorous hold on her 
arm until Rose said with scornful emphasis : 

“ Ef de folks wanted to do the child a hurt, ain’t 
they had all the chance they needed all ’long ? There 
ain’t a man or a woman but w’at’d risk their necks to 
keep harm from her, as far as that goes.” 


TO-MORRO W AND TO-MORRO W. 


321 


Nevertheless the little old lady was sorely disquieted 
when the dauntless girl, mounted on her fleet little 
pony, dashed far ahead of Reuben and disappeared in 
the gloom of the wagon road about which now a lurid 
light was flitting that only intensified its dreariness. 
Miss Denton paced the short gallery with nervous 
strides, now facing toward the dancing, licking flames 
that were fast reducing the costly gin-house to a heap 
of ruin, now toward the fields where the stubble of last 
year’s corn and cotton were brought out in distinct- 
ness in the borrowed light of the conflagration. 

I wish I could have gone with her,” she said anx- 
iously to Rose, who leaned immovably against the 
gallery post, with her haggard eyes fixed on the fire in 
a sort of fascination. 

I tell you she’s safe. Miss Denton,” Rose an- 
swered with asperity. “ She’s a saint and God don’t 
’low common* folks to pester his chill’n. She could 
walk through the fiery furnace if she’d a mind to.” 

Doubtful theology and doubtful comfort, but the 
best to be obtained under the circumstances ! 

The gin-house was but a mile from Olga’s cabin, the 
residence a mile and a half further on toward the river. 
The road she was following Teft the conflagation some 
rods to her left, but she had no errand there. Toward 
the low-roofed house whose gables stood distinctly 
silhouetted against the black sky she galloped rapidly, 
Reuben behind her making what speed he could on 


322 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


his slower mule. If the malice that had dictated the 
burning of Eustis’s gin-house had, also, planned the 
destruction of the residence at Hardlines, Olga felt 
sure the incendiaries would turn their attention in that 
direction so soon as the first paralysis of terror at 
their own rashness in firing the gin-house should have 
passed away. She must be there before them. Her 
pony entered into the spirit of the race and fairly flew 
along the familiar route. 

A shadowy steed surmounted by a shadowy rider, 
whose long draperies fluttered in the speed-made wind 
raced by her side, neck and neck ! It was the flame, 
made shadow of herself and the pony, projected along 
the fire-lit road. She could see, by the turn of her 
head, a confused crowd of men and mules and horses 
moving restlessly and gesticulating wildly about the 
doomed building. There was nothing to do there. 
No means of fighting the fire-fiend. Some few, whose 
zeal outstripped judgment, had come armed with 
buckets, that were simply useless unless in warding off 
suspicion from the bearers of them. The sashes in 
the windows of the little house toward which Olga 
was speeding glittered like tin, where the light fell 
upon them through unclosed shutters. How lonely and 
gruesome it all looked, as she cantered into the back 
yard, dismounted and stood upon the low back gallery 
holding the bridle waiting for Reuben to come up! 
She had never been to the house since her sad leave- 


TO-MORROIV AND TO-MORROW. 323 

taking of Mrs. Stanhope and Ginia when they went 
back to the stately old Hall over in the hills and she — 
to take up her cross in the cabin in the woods. She 
had never seen Eustis since that parting on the river’s 
brink. She hoped she might never have to do so again. 
None-the-less would she gladly serve his interest at any 
peril. But there was really no peril involved in this 
errand. Should danger threaten her, she would go to 
rather than shun, these same misguided passion-blinded 
men who were trying to right many wrongs by com- 
mitting still greater ones. In spite of their profound 
ignorance, (because of which they were liable to fall into 
just such terrible mistakes, as this burning of the Hard- 
lines gin-house), she believed there was a deep-seated 
sense of justice in the negro heart, that made him do- 
cile and manageable by the proper influences. Alas 
for the scarcity of that sort of influence ! 

'‘Take the pony into the stable, please. Uncle Reu- 
ben,” she said, yielding the bridle to the old man. 
“ He is too hot to be left exposed just now. Then come 
back to me here.” 

“What you gwine t’ do, missy?” Reuben asked — 
not questioning but that she would do the right thing, 
only a trifle curious. 

“ I am going to stay here until morning,” she said ; 
“that is, provided the doors are unlocked. Aunt 
Nancy sleeps in the gallery room, you know. She’s at 
the fire now, of course.” 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


324 

Reuben walked away with the two beasts. Olga 
was left standing on the gallery by herself. Around 
her stretched hundreds of acres of brown cotton stalks, 
from whence the last ragged remnant of the staple had 
long since been picked. It was a dismal outlook. 
She faced the burning gin, about which the restless 
dark figures, perpetually shifting their positions, looked 
not unlike a gathering of witches about a huge smok- 
ing caldron. When the sound of the pony’s footfalls 
died away the stillness was deathlike. Reuben would 
be out there in the lot for quite a while, for he never 
lost an opportunity to feed his own mule at somebody 
else’s expense. There was a carpenter’s tool-chest on 
the gallery, which furnished her a seat. She was very 
tired, now that the excitement of reaching the house 
before harm did was passing away. She seated herself 
on the chest to watch and wait. When Nancy came to 
go to bed she would go into the house. Still the crowd 
thickened and surged about the gin. The roof and 
the heavier timbers fell in with a terrific crash, and 
clouds of dense black smoke for a while obscured and 
obliterated the dazzling spectacle. It was in this sec- 
ond of darkness that Olga caught the first stealthy foot- 
fall of some one walking around the house. She stepped 
noiselessly to the end of the gallery and peered over. 
A dark form was stooping on the ground close under 
the front windows and bending forward to adjust some- 
thing under the house. There was an open space 


TO-MORROW AND TO-MORROW. 325 

between the ground and the house, which stood some 
two feet above the surface. Doubtless, whoever it was, 
he was preparing combustibles for its destruction. An 
intense desire to identify the incendiary kept Olga 
motionless. The material prepared to his entire satis- 
faction, the stooping man scratched a match upon his 
knees ! She could see the phosphorescent streak it 
made, but no light followed. Another — it flickered 
into a flame but died as suddenly, as he stretched forth 
his hand with reckless haste. A third ! and the flame, 
sheltered by his hat, this time waxed strong enough to 
be sent on its deadly mission. It illumined the man’s 
face distinctly. 

“ Ephraim ! ” She caught her breath in silent terror 
after that one call. How much harm he had it in his 
power to do her ! After all, this was a rash errand. 
Clearly and distinctly his name rang out upon the 
night air ! The match dropped from the incendiary’s 
unnerved hand and expired sinlessly. No words fol- 
lowed that bell-like call. No form was visible to the 
frightened wretch, crouching there on the hard ground 
in abject terror of what to him sounded like a trumpet 
call to repentance from the skies that overspread him, 
so black and weird in their starless expanse, that 
Ephraim almost looked for a thunderbolt to descend 
and smite him where he kneeled ! Olga could hear his 
voice raised in sudden and fervent supplication for 
pardon for his meditated crime. She had designed no 


326 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


play upon the superstitious terrors of the negro. His 
name had escaped her involuntarily at the moment of 
recognition. But if God had indeed called him to 
repentance through her, then let the leaven work. His 
trembling voice came to her laden with the pathetic 
plea : 

“ Oh Lord, be please to pardon ole Eph’m for de sin 
dat he was ’bout to do ! Oh Lord, be please to ’cept 
ole Eph’m’s thanks for dat Thou hast call to him out 
uv de darkniss, as Thou done call to Sam’el long years 
ago. Mout be mo’n a hundred years. Lord, fur all 
Eph’m knows, for he don’ know nothin’. Lord. But he 
do know ’nuff to know dat burnin’ up gins and w’ite 
folks’ houses ain’ not de strait an’ narrer way t’ dim’ 
to de great w’ite throne. Oh Lord, be please to for- 
give Eph’m dis time, an’ he won’ git in no such fix 
ag’in, no matter ef he do fin’ hisself gittin’ po’er en 
po’er, en older en older, en tireder en tireder ev’ry day 
uv his life. Oh Lord, be please teach a po’ ignunt nigger 
how t’ say dy will be done, an’ ho’p him to mean it, 
too. Now, Lord, Eph’m’s gwine home, en gwine t’ 
bed, an’ when judgment day comes he gwine to say 
oncet mo’ thank de Lord for sendin’ a voice out’n de 
darkness to stop me from de raskillest piece uv work I 
ever ho’ped on.” 

He rose to his feet laboriously. Olga could see 
him moving away toward the front gate, with bowed 
head and hands folded penitentially. Eustis’s house 


TO-MORROW AND TO-MORROW. 327 

was safe enough now. Once let Ephraim's version of 
supernatural protection get afloat and no inducement 
strong enough to raise another hand against it could 
be framed. If Reuben would only come from the lot 
she could safely go back home im'mediately and 
relieve Miss Denton’s anxiety. She would like to take 
a peep into the little sitting-room as long as she was 
here. No one ever locked up in that locality. Doubt- 
less she could get in through Nancy’s room. She found 
no impediment in her way. Through Nancy’s room, on 
the gallery, she passed into the dining-room, (she knew 
every turn of the house as well in the dark as in the 
light), thence, into the hall, where she was surprised to 
see a streak of light issuing from under the sitting- 
room door. Could Nancy be so faithless as to occupy 
the best room in the house, in the absence of the 
family ? She opened the door and found that the light 
was shed by a lamp whose badly smoked chimney 
reduced the illumination to a dingy twilight. To her 
surprise, and consternation, the room showed signs of 
recent and masculine occupancy. There were • two 
valises only partially unpacked, guns, rubber over-coats 
and umbrellas scattered about as if the arrivals had 
been very recent. She had scarcely taken in all these 
startling details when a loud stamping of feet on the 
front gallery added to her terror. There was no escap- 
ing now unless she chose to fly like some guilty inter- 
loper. She was certain she recognized Eustis Start- 


328 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


hope’s step, but that other ? what matter who that 
other ! The door opened upon her as she stood there 
almost defiantly erect, holding up her heavy riding 
skirt in one little gauntleted hand, while her large 
serious eyes were fearlessly directed toward the door. 
It was Eustis who entered, followed closely by Dr. 
Maddox. Both men started in surprise at sight of her, 
while the lantern that Eustis had been holding in a 
loose hand swayed and fell to the ground with a crash. 

Olga ! Little Olga ! ” It was almost a cry. 

She had the advantage of him by that moment of 
preparation. After all, why should she quail before 
this man as if she were guilty of some wrong doing ? 
Why should they not face the future, blank as it was, 
with the courage that comes of right striving and right 
doing? Young as she was, life had already become too 
earnest a thing to Olga Seleman to be frittered away 
in useless repinings. That other presence made it 
easier for her to speak words of common-place 
explanation : 

“ I did not know you were on this side of the river, 
Mr. Stanhope, or I would not have been so officious. 
I have feared something of this kind was brewing, but 
had nothing tangible to go on, or would have written 
you. My people,” here her eyes darkened and dilated 
and her voice that had been tremulous grew suddenly 
metallic, “ will let me say any thing to them and they 
obey my voice. When I discovered your gin-house 


TO-MORROW AND TO-MORROW. 


329 


was on fire I fancied they would destroy this house too. 
It was to prevent it that I came.” (She did not tell 
him that she had prevented it.) 

Alone ! child ! ” 

Her sweet voice had seemed to come to him 
across a wide gulf. How harsh and senseless and 
inadequate his own words sounded by contrast ! 

“ No, not alone,” she said, moving quietly toward the 
door, there stopping to add, Uncle Reuben came 
with me. Good-by! You will let me tell you how 
sorry I am for your loss, will you not ? ” 

He was devouring her with his hungry eyes. From 
the low white forehead slightly prominent over the fine 
dark line of her brows ; from the soft eyes that glowed 
now with a pity almost divine ; down to the little foot 
whose arched instep peeped from under the up-lifted 
riding skirt, she was altogether lovely in his eyes. He 
came out of a trance of passionate longing and regret 
to say stupidly : 

What loss?” 

“ Your beautiful stately gin-house.” 

Curse the gin-house. Maddox and I are just from 
the enjoyment of the spectacular drama. A few 
thousand dollars can wipe out that loss.” 

She was out of the door now, would soon be beyond 
reach of his thanks for her heroism. What a clumsy 
brute he was, what an angel she 1 With long strides he 
went after her and laid his hand upon her shoulder. 


330 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


She could feel the tremor that thrilled through his 
strong frame. She could hear the vibrant pain in his 
beloved voice: 

“ I want to take you home, Olga, if you will let me/' 

“No! ” She erected a sudden icy barrier between 
them. 

“You are not afraid of me?” he said with bitter 
emphasis. “ You, the dauntless heroine of a perilous 
ride in the night time to save a pile of worthless 
timber? It was a piece of folly, your coming, but — I 
thank you for it. God bless you, child.” 

“Thank me for a piece of folly?” she said in lighter 
vein. She would gladly obliterate the intense past in 
a practical present. Eustis caught the infection of 
her courage and answered more composedly : 

“ Thank you for making it easier for me to do what 
I came over here to do, Olga.” 

“ And that is — ? ” 

“ And that is to lighten your burden if I can. To con- 
secrate my life to the same ends. To offer you such 
help, in your self-appointed task, as your superior 
judgment shall dictate. To ask permission to be 
your co-worker in the cause you have espoused with 
bravery that makes me know myself for a craven and 
a cumberer of the earth. Oh ! my little girl, if we can 
but clasp comrade hands over the dark gulf that 
separates us, life will not be so hueless to me as it is 
at present.” 


TO-MORROW AND TO-MORROW, 331 

She did not answer him immediately; when she did 
there was almost a sob in her voice : “ It is a good thing 
to learn to live without the sunshine, dear friend. It is 
a better to find the sunshine where at first sight seem 
only storm-clouds. I shall go home as happy as a 
child on Christmas night because of the brave friendly 
words you have spoken.” She put her hand in his and 
he clasped it fearlessly, as he said — “ Maddox and I 
will come to your home in the morning.” 

Reuben was waiting by the gallery with the pony. 
Eustis helped her into the saddle, then stood where 
she had left him, until the sound of her pony’s hoofs 
died away in the far distance. Then he went back to 
Robert Maddox. 

“ In the name of all that is majestic who is that 
girl?” asked Robert, as soon as he appeared in the 
door-way, I’m consumed with curiosity.” 

“ That is Miss Sjeleman. I told you of her.” 

“ That beautiful creature is — ” 

‘‘The outcast child of a mulatto mother ! ” says Eus- 
tis in passionate tones. “ The sin offering for an 
accursed generation ! A lamb without blemish ! A 
creature in whom is no guile, and, yet — doomed.” 

“ Doomed, according to the conventionalities of 
society, Eustis, yes. But, in the eyes of Him who 
seeth not as man seeth, a vessel chosen to honor. 
Peace be with her.” 

And Eustis said — Amen ! 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


CO-WORKERS. 

P erhaps if obstacles of an ordinary nature, such 
as are perpetually fretting the current of true love, 
had come between Eustis Stanhope and Olga it would 
have been much harder for them to meet on the plain 
of a common interest in a common cause as they did 
now meet, through the energetic action of Robert 
Maddox. 

To know Olga sprung from the race his ancestors 
had held in centuries of bondage (a bondage whose 
righteousness Eustis had never once questioned), was 
to know her forever dead to him, in the way he had 
loved to think of her, even when to him she was but 
a penniless, nameless charity girl whose peerless worth 
had come between him and all his carefully nurtured 
prejudices of name and station. If the line of demark- 
ation between them had been narrower, so narrow that 
there was danger of his overstepping it in a moment of 
forgetfulness or of longing, he might have needed to 
be more cautious. As it was the gulf was so awful, so 
wide, so utterly impassable, that he could safely hold 
up her hands ” in the work to which she had bravely 
dedicated her young life. He felt somewhat as if he were 


CO-WORKERS. 


333 


acting as executor for the love that had been slain, in 
ministering to her necessities in this new life of hers. 

And now, Robert, with his fresh importation of 
breezy vigorous views on the problem of to-day, had, 
metaphorically speaking, shaken him by the shoulders 
until he stood aroused to the fact that there was a great 
deal needing to be done, and somebody must needs be 
doing it, and no one was better fitted than himself by 
age and position to do it : Robert’s arguments had been 
as vigorous as his own broad-shouldered, big-chested, 
clear-headed self : 

“ Come, go with me over to Hardlines, Eustis, and let 
us investigate things. You don’t half appreciate your 
own privileges, man. Here you are, the sole represen- 
tative of one of the oldest families in the South, your 
own master in every respect, a deal better off, finan- 
cially, than nine-tenths of us poor broken up ex-rebels, 
and a move from you, an active move, would carry 
such tremendous weight over in your own parish, and 
yet you sit stock still, deaf and dumb and blind to your 
own best intesests.” 

“What sort of move, Rob?” Eustis had asked with 
only half-aroused interest. (Robert, he decided, was 
certainly a monomanaic on this subject, but, after all, 
it was rather refreshing, amid the universal stagnation, 
to find a fellow who could get in earnest over any 
thing, even if it was over a lot of “woolly heads ” who 
were doing well enough.) 


334 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


Why, I want you to go over to Hardlines and turn 
things upside-down.” 

“ By George, if things are not already upside-down 
enough to please you, fanatic as you are, you are 
confoundly radical in your desires ! I hope you don’t 
feel any premonitory symptoms of socialism, or com- 
munism, or any thing of that sort, you know. Bob ? ” 

“ If I do,” said Robert, with a light laugh, “ you are 
safe enough from infection ; you are too thoroughly 
inoculated with inherited notions to dread the closest 
contact with the most violent case of socialism. But 
come, don’t shy like an unbroken colt, if I don’t hap- 
pen to use the identical phraseology, or express the 
identical views about the darkeys held in honor by 
your revered great-grandfather, Judge Jeremiah Stan- 
hope of Stanhope Hall. The world is moving, Eustis, 
wake up, man ! open your eyes to the fact that it is 
moving with titanic strides, at that. You don’t care 
to be left in the sands like an old skiff not worth the 
cobbling up, do you ? ” 

“ I really can’t see what I can do to avoid just that 
catastrophe,” says Eustis, passing from languid indiffer- 
ence into bitter complaining ; “ my life seems to have 
been made or marred beyond my own control. I came 
home with an average stock of enthusiasms and inten- 
tions. But — well — hang it all, you see for yourself.” 

“ Of course I see for myself. I see a man, in the 
early prime of his life, settling down to an existence of 


CO-WORKERS. 


335 


ennui and uselessness simply because an overruling 
Providence has dared to interfere with the plan of life 
he had mapped out for himself. I see a man flinging 
away his golden opportunity because it does not come 
to him just when and how he had pre-ordained it for 
himself. I see a man, child rather, who, because he 
has cried for the moon that he couldn’t get refuses to 
be consoled with the green-cheese that he can get.” 

“Oh! I say, hold up. Bob, can’t you? You are get- 
ting a little rough on a fellow. I’m not such a^duffer 
as you’d make me out.” 

. “ No,” Robert answered placidly, “ I don’t intend to 
hold up until I get my own way. I never do. It is 
one of the rules I have laid down for my own guid- 
ance through life.” 

“ The deuce you have ! And yet here you have been 
lecturing me for rebelling at not having mine in any 
respect.” 

“With this slight difference,” said Robert, with a 
smile of almost womanly sweetness. “You want to 
have your way with God. I intend to have my way 
with man. If we put it on the very lowest grounds, 
Eu, it is the part of common sense to accept the inev- 
itable gracefully. But I don’t want to piit it on the 
lowest grounds with you, old chap. I want to put it 
on the very highest. And I don’t want you to fling 
away your chances because of some disappointments 
that have come to you in your undisciplined years.” 


336 


WITHOUT BLEMISH 


** You’ve mistaken your profession, Bob. But come, 
now, cut short the preaching and tell me what you 
want me to do.” 

*^As an initial step I want you to go over to Hard- 
lines and master the situation there. Unfortunately, 

I have no plantation of my own to experiment on, so 
I have to borrow from my neighbors.” 

** But, confound your assumption, I have mastered 
the situation in Hardlines. Don’t you suppose I pay 
any atfention to my own business ? ” 

“The question is, what do you call your own busi- 
ness? I’ll wager you know how much cotton to a* 
pound of lint belongs to you and to your merchant and 
to each squad. Of course you know the condition of 
your work-mules ; and the quantity of rations con- 
sumed by man and beast, for the calendar year. 
And, perhaps, you know in a general way which 
ones of your hands are getting along so smoothly 
that they will own their own teams next year, and 
which ones will leave before this crop is picked 
out. I will even go further to your credit side. 
You may know that the meeting house on Hardlines 
has the most room and the tightest roof and the best 
supplied pulpit in the parish.” 

“ And if that does not cover the entire ground,” 
Eustis says triumphantly, “ I’d like to know what will.” 

“Cover the entire ground! No, sir.” Dr. Maddox 
got up from his chair to pace the room, with his hands 


CO- WORKERS. 


337 


in his trowsers pockets, as he always did when his feel- 
ings threatened to get the better of him. “No, sir,” 
he repeated, emphatically, “ it does not begin to cover 
the entire ground. At the close of the war it was 
expected that the negro race would gradually disperse 
throughout the United States, and, by becoming 
absorbed, as it were, lose all identity, all significance, we 
may say. I think we of the South, in our then discon- 
tented frame of mind rather hoped there would be a 
grand hegira northward. We saw in our newly-freed 
slaves a sort of infernal machine with limitless capabil- 
ities for harm, from which all restraining influences had 
been removed and which we hardly knew how to han- 
dle. We wanted the North, that had been so active in 
freeing him, to have the full benefit of his ignorance 
and helplessness and worthlessness. We thought he 
had been spoiled as a laborer, and we considered him 
an abortion as a citizen. His first clumsy efforts in an 
educational way were excessively funny to us ; we saw 
only its burlesque side. We naturally and bitterly 
resented the fact of emancipation, and visited it upon 
its ignorant beneficiaries by a cold and sullen accept- 
ance of what we could not ignore. Absorbed in self- 
pity for our own shattered fortunes, we could not form 
a fair and just estimate of his naked and shelterless 
condition, suddenly taken from under the careful 
guardianship of his old masters to be placed upon the 
bleak pinnacle of citizenship and told to look out for 


338 


WITHOUT BLEMISH 


himself. He could not look out for himself, Eu, and 
we were too wrapped up in gloomy retrospection to 
look out for him properly. Small wonder, then, that 
the horrors of the carpet-bag episode should intervene.” 

^ “I don’t see yet,” says Eustis, resentfully, “that we 
of the South are called upon to do any thing more 
than we have done. It is too much to ask that, impov- 
erished as we are, bowed down by every species of 
calamity, we should yet undertake, unaided, the educa- 
tion of millions of blacks. By every rule of right and 
justice this should be the undertaking of the National 
Government. The responsibility of emancipation lies 
at its door: let it, also, assume that of enlighten- 
ment.” 

“But if it won’t, Eustis?” 

“ Well, then, I suppose we’ll scramble on in the same 
old slovenly fashion.” 

“You may well say the same ‘old slovenly fashion.’ 
The negro restless, uneasy and suspicious ; the white 
man commercially just enough, but totally unsympa- 
thetic, feeling that he has grievances, but hopeless of 
remedies. Seeing in the negro only a very unsatisfac- 
tory sort of utensil.” 

“And, by George! we have grievances, and I am 
hopeless of remedies.” 

“ That is simply because you are hopeless on general 
principles. If we would only bring it down to a ques- 
tion of expediency we would do better. I think time 


CO- WORKERS. 


339 


has practically demonstrated the fact that the negro 
will not migrate from the South. We are bound 
together by indissoluble ties of common interests, com- 
mon associations and climatic preferences. This much 
granted, no one but a fool would object to using every 
means for bettering the moral and mental status of the 
race. We will be the greater sufferers by a contrary 
policy. It is not enough that they have teachers and 
teaching. It behooves us to see that they have the 
right sort of teaching ; teaching that will not leave 
them satisfied with a few imitative acquirements and a 
smattering of book learning, but such as will go deep 
down to the bed-rock of their moral ignorance. Teach- 
ing that will penetrate the dense fog that envelops 
their benighted souls and shed thereon the light of 
Christian intelligence, love and fellowship. Teachers 
who, by making them strong and self-respecting, will 
elevate them to that plane where the white man of the 
South can recognize in the black man of the South an 
efficient and manly co-worker in interests that must 
always remain one; where the white woman of the 
South can see something more in the black woman of 
the South than the poor, untaught slattern, whose 
shortcomings are now simply matters of course, either 
to be fretted over or laughed at, and whose want of 
virtue can be condoned with criminal ease.” 

It was impossible to listen to this young enthusiast, 
whose burning plea for a race was always enhanced by 


340 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


the flashing of his great blue eyes, and the defiant atti- 
tude of an athlete, without catching the infection of 
his earnestness. Eustis was fired now to the point of 
saying, tragically, while he laughed in his friend’s 
excited face: 

“Take me! Use me. As the clay in the potter’s 
hands so will I be in thine. Oh ! most noble enthu- 
siast ! Oh ! most insufferable of bores.” 

“ Done ! ” says Robert, laughingly accepting his 
rather incongruous titles. “ I shall proceed to trans- 
port my clay to Hardlines.” 

So, this is the way “ the boys,” as Mrs. Stanhope and 
Miss Denton still persisted in calling these two young 
stalwarts, came to be over at Hardlines on the night of 
the gin-house burning. 

“ It is your baptism of fire, my boy,” says Robert, 
as they halted their horses near the still smoking ruins 
the next day, “ from which you’ll come out purified and 
strengthened.” Then they rode on silently until they 
neared the cabin that Olga called home. 

“ If I could but take the grandly impersonal views 
of life that child takes,” says Eustis, “all might be well 
with me.” 

“ All will be well with you, old friend,” Robert 
answers affectionately, “now that you’ve found an 
object in life. A man without an object in life is infi- 
nitely worse off than Peter Schemill was.” * * * 

“ Maddox and you have spent more thought on this 


CO. WORKERS. 


341 


subject in a week than I have in all my useless life,’* 
says Eustis to Olga, introducing his friend and his 
errand simultaneously, “ but, whatever plans you agree 
upon, I am humbly bent upon forwarding to the best 
of my ability personally and financially. You may rely 
upon me.” 

(It was a fine thing to do ! It was a fine thing to 
see ! It always is a fine thing to see a man put self 
down with a strong hand and rise to full recognition of 
the master-fact that he is indeed but as clay in the 
potter’s hand. But oh ! the infinite goodness and just- 
ness and tenderness of the great Potter !) 

“ You,” said Olga to Dr. Maddox, with the simple 
directness that gave all her utterances such an air of 
well digested thought, “ look upon this question from 
the broader and more elevated platform of the political 
economist. You are looking into the remote possibili- 
ties of the negro’s life as a responsible citizen of the New 
South. I, from my more contracted point of vision, 
only reach out to him, or want to, the daily help he so 
much needs for daily guidance.” 

“ Which is good theology and better wisdom,” says 
Robert, smiling into the sweet face of his girlish coad- 
jutor. ‘‘ Let the things of to-morrow take care of them- 
selves. Whosoever teaches the colored boy of to-day [ 
to cast up his accounts correctly, to recognize that 
others have rights of property which he must respect, 
or to detest a lie, is laying the foundation for his future 


342 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


success as a citizen on solid rock, or whosoever teaches 
the colored girl of to-day that it is more honorable and 
praiseworthy to learn how to keep her home neat, or 
how to cut and make her own dresses (rather than 
bedeck herself with second-hand finery), or that a well- 
cooked meal is more to her credit than a badly played 
tune, is laying the foundation for an increase of virtue 
and dignity in the entire race. These are the small 
things of to-day, which, well seen to, may safely be 
entrusted to solve the greater problem of his citizen- 
ship, about which so much type is used and upon 
which so little enlightenment is being shed.” 

Then Olga laid before her two unexpected aids all 
the plans that had been shaping and forming them- 
selves in her longing imagination all through the lonely 
months of this last year, while little Miss Denton 
listened and smiled and muttered — Utopia! 

There were those who said, (when these plans rapidly 
took shape under the vigorous policy instituted by 
Eustis Stanhope on his own place), that “ Eustis Stan- 
hope had fallen under the evil influence of a crack- 
brained enthusiast fresh from the atmosphere of radi- 
calism (that was poor Bob !) and would soon swamp 
himself with his schools for men at night and for boys 
in day-time, with his industrial schools and his sewing 
schools and other “ advanced nonsense.” 

There were those who wished him and his revolu- 
tionary plans at the deuce, for popularizing Hardlines. 


CO. WORKERS, 


343 


There were those who looked on with aroused and 
curious interest, prepared to “ follow suit ” in case “ it 
paid/’ 

There were those who sneered at what came to be 
called the Hardlines policy, with a sourness that had 
its roots in the ineradicable conviction that the blow 
that struck the shackles from the slave had only rivet- 
ed them upon his master. Who saw the word finis 
written to all things lovely in the South. Who mourned 
the Old South as a slain divinity and accepted the New 
South as a plebeian caricature. Who could not see in 
it, by reason of their own spiritual blindness, a young 
Samson Agonistes arousing himself from the stupor of 
despair, breaking in twain the rotting withes of prej- 
udice and error, to stand forth dauntless in resolve to 
wrestle with adversity and to conquer ! 

There were those who, keenly alive to the urgent 
necessity for remedial measures, burdened with a sense 
of responsibility for the helpless wards of an indifferent 
guardian, were, while bewildered and perplexed, 
earnestly minded to see fair play, bade the young 
enthusiasts God-speed from their hearts, and cheered 
them on the untried way. 

But among those who stood sneeringly aloof, or only 
commented to Condemn, was Mr. G. Waring Trow- 
bridge. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


IN BRIDAL ARRAY, 


ND the days that saw Olga’s fair vision of justice, 



no longer blind, but with eyes illumined by the 
spirit of divine truth and pity, stretching out brave 
helpful hands to a benighted race, shedding light in the 
dark places, lifting up the lowly and strengthening the 
weak, gradually take on the form and substance of a 
glorious reality, saw Rose’s nameless child growing in 
beauty of face and figure until Mrs. Stanhope’s adopted 
daughter was universally pronounced “ the prettiest 
girl in old Adam’s county ; ” saw her winding herself 
very closely about the heart of the stately woman, 
whose darkened vision saw no flaw in the child, who 
flitted about her with that ineradicable suggestion of 
kittenish irresponsibility that was part of her charm 
— and her inheritance. Amiable, unreliable, affectionate, 
weak, there you have Ginia summed up morally ; saw 
the dawning of the day when Robert Maddox was to 
take her to wife, thereby filling the cup of pride full to 
overflowing for the haggard-eyed, hollow-chested 
woman who moved about Olga’s cabin on the fateful 
morning in a very ecstasy of nervousness, which finally 
found vent in a petition. 


IN BRIDAL ARRA Y. 


345 


Olga was just mounting her pony to go to the school- 
house, when Rose appeared before her, rubbing a 
breakfast cup with such nervous energy as to crush it 
in her tremulous hands, the jagged edge cutting into 
her flesh unheeded : 

“ Honey,” she said, in a voice as indifferent as she 
could make it, would you mind much if I left you for 
this one night ’lone ? I’ll get Mandy Simmons to stay 
in the house with you. I’m all out of sorts these days, 
and I feel mighty like a little trip would do me a heap 
er good, seems like I ain’t just myself.” 

“ My poor Rose,” said Olga, laying her gentle hands 
on the thin, hard shoulders, “ don’t you know I would 
do any thing in the wide world to add to your comfort 
or happiness? Why didn’t you tell me long ago, that 
a trip would do you good ? ” 

Rose’s eyes fell abashed before the pure pity in her 
innocent dupe’s eyes. In all these years of angelic 
patience and ministration on Olga’s part, she had suf- 
fered from a vague sense of remorse, which she had 
easily lulled to sleep by fresh exertions on her own 
part in behalf of Olga’s physical comfort, or her own 
mental improvement, which she had come to know 
gave more pleasure than any thing else she could do. 
But to-day, the day which, it seemed to Rose, had 
been ordained exclusively for her child’s benefit, 
remorse was quickened by a sense of contrast between 
what was and what ought to have been, and she could 


346 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


not stand the serene gaze of those earnest eyes. She 
mechanically staunched the few drops of blood that 
had oozed from the hot dry skin of her hand, with the 
cup-towel, as she answered slowly : 

“ I ain’t thought much about it before to-day.” 

“ And where do you want to go. Rose ? New 
Orleans?” 

“ I ain’t thought much about that either, honey, but 
if you wouldn’t mind, I believe I’ll just go over to 
see Miss Ginia married. That’ll be trip enough for 
me. The folks tell me they’re goin’ t’ have big doin’s 
at the old Hall, and, you know, it will sort of set me 
up just to see the fine dressin’, and the table, and 
maybe, you know, I might come in handy over to the 
Hall to-night, about the ladies’ dressing-room, you 
know. That Dumps will have more on her hands than 
such a poor goose of a girl can manage, anyhow. Nig- 
gers is a mighty poor dependence now, any which*a- 
way. I don’t mean to be ’ficious about offerin’ my 
services, but, you know, I worked a whole month at a 
hair dresser’s in Cleveland, and if Miss Ginia ain’t got 
any body to fix her hair, maybe she’ll let me do it. I 
used to be real handy about such things, but my hand’s 
sorter out now, I reckon. But then,” with a mirthless, 
hysterical laugh, “ I’m countin’ my chickens before 
they’re hatched. I reckon old Miss Stanhope’s 
daughter, that’s what the folks calls Miss Ginia, ’ll 
be above lettin’ such a shabby old rag-tag as me come 


IN BRIDAL ARRA Y. 


347 


nigh her, let alone fix her purty hair, and her to be 
married to Dr. Robert Maddox ! ” 

Thus the poor mother-bird, whose heart was all 
a-flutter with joy and pride and tremulous fear lest 
any indiscretion that might betray the long-hidden 
nest from which her radiant nestling sprung should 
escape her lips, prattled on to lure her unsuspecting 
listener away from the sacred spot. 

“ I shan’t mind in the least. Rose,” said Olga, kindly. 
“ I shall be glad to have you go to the Hall to see the 
wedding. Make your preparations by the time I get 
back at twelve o’clock and I will see you off comfort- 
ably.” 

Then Olga rode away to the school-house with a 
sharp pain at her heart that she could neither reason 
nor scold herself out of. She thought of the dear old 
Hall, illuminated to-night and filled with brightness 
and merriness and warmth in Ginia’s honor! She 
thought of Ginia, safe sheltered in the strong loving 
arms of a brave good man, with nothing in life to 
do but to be happy and be loved ! She thought of the 
stately lady of Stanhope Hall giving the charity child 
into Robert Maddox’s keeping with the prestige of her 
approval set as a seal upon the fair young brow ! She 
thought — and then the pain grew sharpest — of Eustis, 
doing Virginia honor as his mother’s adopted daughter 
and the bride of his well-beloved friend ! And then 
she thought of a bleak morning in the far away past. 


348 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


in far away Cleveland, when she had found a little for- 
saken child crying her frightened heart out at the asylum 
gate, and had taken her into her own motherly little 
heart and loved and cherished and championed her 
through all the forlorn asylum days. Then she took 
herself to task for the meanness of this retrospection. 
Was she charging up all the good fortune and bright- 
ness and love that had come into Ginia’s lot against 
her? Had not Ginia done quite the nice thing in a 
sweet little note she had written, begging Olga to come 
over with Miss Denton to the wedding, adding in a 
patronizing little P. S.” : “ Come because I want you, 
dear Ollie, and never mind if the blue bloods that are 
coming to see darling Robert and me made one, 
should look askance at the brave girl who has dared to 
dedicate her life to the elevation of a lot of stupid 
darkeys. Tm not in sympathy with your work myself, 
dearie, and have given the doctor distinctly to under- 
stand that he need not look for me to help him in his 
cranky plans of redemption, but I do so want you to 
see my wedding trousseau. Every thing is just lovely. 
Mamma Stanhope has been the soul of generosity and 
goodness to me.” 

And Olga had sent word by Miss Denton that she 
could not come, but sent enough good wishes to secure 
her happiness forever, if wishes were all that was 
needed. No, there was no spark of jealousy in her 
cogitations, as she rode on toward the task that 


IN BRIDAL ARRA Y. 


349 


suddenly looked so monstrously hard and dull to 
her. It was simply the cry of a starved heart for 
something better than the husks that had fallen to her 
share. 

It was late afternoon when the boat Rose had “ hailed 
in ” landed her on the Natchez side of the river. Stan- 
hope Hall was fully four miles from the wharf boat. 
The weather was bleak and uncertain, and the roads 
heavy with soaking November rains. “ You must not 
attempt to walk out, Rose,” was the last thing Olga 
had said to her and saw to it that she had ample means 
with her for hack hire. 

But Rose, in whose soul deception of any sort was the 
merest peccadillo, when the exigencies of the occasion 
called for it, made haste to invest all the money she had 
about her in a nickel-plated molasses jug which com- 
pletely satisfied her own limited conceptions of ele- 
gance. With this wedding present for Ginia wrapped 
up in her shawl, she started forward on foot, careless 
of cold or fatigue, only mindful that she should reach 
the Hall in time to lay her votive offering before the 
shrine of her idolatry before it was too late. 

I hope nobody else won’t think of a molasses 
jug,” she murmured to herself, taking it from under 
her shawl and tearing off a corner of the wrappings to 
peep at it with a glow of pride in the thought that 
even thus humbly and remotely she was adding her 
drop to Ginia’s already brimming cup of happiness. 


350 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


But when at early lamp-light Rose found herself 
alone with the bride (privileged by reason of Miss 
Denton’s recommendation to be her dressing-maid 
for the solemn ceremonial), her childish pride and joy 
was submerged in a feeling of tender awe that made 
her mute in the presence of the child whom she had 
nourished from her own bosom and whom she had put 
away from her, long years ago, for its own good. Put- 
ting it at the asylum Where her color wouldn’t be 
against her,” she had reasoned within her mother heart 
when combating the fierce pain of renunciation. 

But Rose’s own light hue still further mitigated in 
her daughter’s blood left Virginia’s physique above 
suspicion. There was that about the full red lips, the 
slight flattening of the bridge of the small nose, and the 
tight crisp waving of the hair which Rose gathered into 
her hands with such trembling eagerness, that would 
have caused a shrewd physiognomist to wonder and 
perhaps to whisper. But the woman who stood behind 
the chair where Ginia sat before the dressing glass was 
no physiognomist, and to her the face the glass sent 
back for her inspection was altogether faultless. 

Oh ! for the privilege that once was hers of putting 
her arms about the slender waist and pressing her child 
close, close, close, to her yearning heart ! Oh ! for the 
privilege of drawing the pretty head, so temptingly 
close to her trembling hands, down upon her bosom to 
press a mother’s fondest blessings on the sweet lips 


IN BRIDAL ARRA Y. 


351 


that would soon belong to another, with all their wealth 
of unkissed kisses, all their untold power for another’s 
weal! Oh ! to be the mother again for one unrebuked 
moment of perfect bliss ! How caressingly her long 
thin hands lingered about the shining braids, forever 
shifting them, now higher, now lower, anything to pro- 
long the blissful time of servitude ! While Ginia prattled 
on (as Ginia must prattle to somebody or any body), 
from the fullness of her gay young heart. At last Rose 
could find no excuse for removing another hair-pin. 
Ginia sprang briskly to her feet, weary of long confine- 
ment in one attitude. The soft white mull dress with 

% 

its trimmings of old lace from Mrs. Stanhope’s own 
hoard, the long tulle veil, and the crowning glory of 
myrtle leaves and orange-buds lay ready to be donned. 
Rose stood for an enraptured second with folded hands 
before her beautiful daughter. 

“ Miss Ginia,” how freighted with wistful tender- 
ness the voice was, ‘Mon’t you wish your mammy 
could see you now ? ” 

“ Poor mamma, yes. But she’s hopelessly blind, you 
know. Rose, she’ll never see a wink again,” says Ginia, 
staring into the hand glass she held in front of her to 
get the effect of her back hair from the larger one. 

“ I don’t mean ole Miss Stanhope,” says Rose 
huskily, “ I mean your own ma. The mother that 
brought you into the world and nursed you when you 
was a little baby, and tended you and loved you—” 


352 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


“ And put me into a horrid orphan asylum,” Vir- 
ginia interrupts spitefully. “ No, I don’t. It is not her 
fault that I’m not this moment bound out to some- 
body to make dresses or nurse children. Hush ! don’t 
talk about it. I want to forget that I ever was in the 
asylum, but I can’t where there are so many hateful 
people who know all about it and throw it up to 
me.” 

Me throw any thing up to you. Miss Ginia ! Far 
from me be it. Rose would make you happier than the 
angels in heaven if she could, my sweety ; ” then brush- 
ing away a furtive tear with one hand. Rose took up 
the shimmering bridal robe and lifted it carefully over 
the pretty head and fastened it with clinging fingers 
about the slim waist, and one by one she laid the finish- 
ing touches on with the solemn awe of an officiating 
priestess, until Virginia’s toilet was complete and she 
stood in bridal array a vision of loveliness that swept 
away the last remnant of self-control in the untutored 
soul of the trembling woman before her, leaving only 
the mother — passionate and longing. Nature would be 
denied no longer. Rose sank slowly to her knees with 
folded hands uplifted in petition to her idol of clay : 
the hunger of a starved heart burned in her haggard 
eyes : 

“ One kiss, my child ! One kiss for the mother that 
bore you and that put you in the way of all the good 
that’s come to you this night, and that’s kept her love 


IN BRIDAL AREA V. 


353 


and her longing out of sight and out of hearing until 
her heart’s like a starved dog gnawin’ at her vitals. 
One kiss, my own beautiful. Nobody’ll ever know it. 
I’m a dyin’ woman anyhow, my baby, but whether I 
dies soon or not I’ll never come nigh you again. I 
ain’t foolin’ you, my little child. I’m your true mother, 
my beautiful. I hung the things about your neck that 
I cut loose for you that day at Miss Denton’s, and my 
heart swelled to think my baby had fell into such good 
hands, and I swore I’d die before I’d ever stand in your 
way. And I haven’t. I put you from me to give you a 
white child’s chance, and you’ve had it, my baby. 
And when mammy made the mistake and told Olga 
she was mine I wouldn’t tell the truth for fear harm 
might come to you. And when she’s tried to act the 
daughter to me, my head’s fell before her, for shame that 
I was deceivin’ such an angel like her, but I couldn’t 
help it. If God sends me to hell for it, I can’t help it. 
I come to grief when I was a girl, because I didn’t 
know no better, and I vowed when I put you in the 
’sylum you should have a chance to learn right from 
wrong. And you’ve had it, my beautiful. And I 
don’t ask any thing from you but one little kiss. It 
won’t do no harm to give me one little kiss before you 
gives them all to him, daughter. Let me call you 
daughter and put these poor longin’ arms round your 
purty waist just once. He’s good to my people, and 
he’s goin’ to lift ’em up out of the miry clay, but he 


354 


WITHOUT BLEMISH, 


shan’t never know you’re mine. I’d die first. One 
kiss! Only one, my beautiful ! ” 

With nervous shrinking from what she took for the 
ravings of one stricken with sudden lunacy, Virginia 
recoiled from contact with the kneeling figure and 
gathered her white draperies close about her as she 
stamped her tiny foot furiously, her bright eyes blazing 
with anger : 

Get up, Rose! You ugly bad woman to spoil my 
wedding night with such ravings ! Go away from me ! 
Get up and go right out of that door ! Your words have 
no meaning in them ! You talk like a crazy woman ! 
What do I know about your child ? ” But Rose 
crawled after her on bended knees and caught the float- 
ing draperies in her reckless hands. Her haggard eyes 
were fixed imploringly on the passionate young face 
above her. 

One kiss, my beautiful ! The first and the last ever 
since I put you from me to give you a white child’s 
chance. I’m a dyin’ woman, daughter, but it’ll make 
death easy to think you’ve gained so much by my givin’ 
gf you up. One little kiss is all the pay I ask. I never 
meant to have opened my mouth, but ” 

Don’t dare to say you are my mother. You shan’t 
say it. You — you — I hate you ! ” 

Rose’s clutch tightened about her skirts ! A gasp- 
ing gurgling sound issued from the lips that had 
pleaded to her so vainly, A thin stream of blood 


IN BRIDAL ARRA K 


355 


appeared in the open mouth. With a scream of terror 
Virginia wrenched herself free from her mother’s 
clinging clasp, made one fatal step backward toward 
the open fire-place where the piled up logs of wood 
were making merry over this tragedy of a starved heart. 
Into the blaze her long tulle veil fluttered ! Caught 
and wrapped her about in licking hungry flames with 
the speed of thought. Out through the door that led 
to help she sped, maddened by terror, conscious of but 
one frantic desire — to reach Robert! With piercing 
distinctness his name rang out over the house, now in 
the upper halls, nowon the grand staircase, now in the 
lower halls where a few early guests were already as- 
sembled, and where Eustis, startled by that piercing 
cry for Robert ! Robert I Robert ! fast followed by the 
flying figure of fire sprang forward and caught the flame- 
wrapped form into a daring embrace — too late ! 

There was no wedding at Stanhope Hall that night ! 
Instead, in the nuptial chamber lay a poor charred pain- 
racked form about which ministering hands hovered 
unresting and pitiful, while, out yonder in the servants’ 
house lay a woman dying of a hemorrhage, with fright- 
ened Dumps sitting by her bed-side. Only Rose ! No 
one knew how it all had happened. Nothing but moans 
came from poor little Ginia’s parched lips. No sound 
of any sort from those others. Silenced forever were 
Rose’s lips. fNo more longing, no more deceiving! no 
more sinning ! no more vain pleading ! 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


THE LETTER DELIVERED 

D eath must result from the shock to her system. 

It may be within two or three hours, or it may 
not be for forty-eight. Her present condition of col- 
lapse, or prostration, may be succeeded by delirium, or 
she may pass away without recognition. I wish we 
could hold out an atom of hope, but we can not. We 
have complied with your request to give you the 
result of our consultation, without reserve and imme- 
diately.^/ 

This was the horrible verdict that the spokesman 
for the consulting physicians brought to Robert Mad- 
dox, where he stood at the library window gloomily 
watching the gray light of another dawn steal over a 
world suddenly made desolate for him. His bright 
young face was drawn into sudden lines of rigid resolve. 
Great black rings encircled his eyes, testifying to the 
intensity of the suffering that had been crowded into 
the past few hours. As the doctor pronounced poor 
little Virginia’s doom with slow reluctaiKe, a shudder 
passed through the athletic form of the young man, 


THE LETTER DELIVERED. 


357 


ana tor a moment he buried his face in his hands and 
yielded to his grief. 

“ My poor little one ! I wish I could bear it for her,” 
he moaned, and then presently went up to take his 
place by her side, putting from him, as far as he might, 
all thought of his own loss, so long as there was any 
thing to do for her. 

Delirium did set in ! 

And what wildly incoherent utterances fell upon the 
tortured ears of the sorrowing group gathered about 
her bed ! All her cry was for Olga. There was no 
gleam of recognition for the loving eyes, or the 
piteous pleadings that Robert poured into her ears, 
begging her to tell him how it had all happened. In a 
fevered flow of words she gave them the story that 
none had a key to. It was of Rose! of Olga ! of the 
asylum ! that she prattled unceasingly. Only rarely 
Robert’s name escaped her lips, and then the words he 
strained his ears so eagerly to catch were strangely 
incomprehensible and unsatisfying: “ Ollie ! I want 
Ollie ! Ollie will make her go away ! I’m not her child, 
Ollie, oh ! say I’m not that poor crazy woman’s child. 
Take her away 1 Take her away ! There’s blood upon 
her lips. She wants to kiss me ! Take her away ! Her 
eyes hurt me 1 They burn me ! Bring Ollie ! She loves 
me ! ” 

And they brought Olga. She did not refuse the 
summons this time. It was one thing to deny the 


35S 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


happy exultant bride’s summons to share in her 
triumph — another, to stand aloof from the child she 
had always loved and comforted in times of sorrow 
and suffering. And kneeling by her bed-side now, 
Olga tried to soothe the wild delirium of the poor little 
sufferer by crooning over her the songs she had loved 
best in the old asylum days. And Ginia knew the 
beloved voice and heeded it. “ Ollie,” she said, fixing 
her great innocent eyes wistfully on the face so close 
her own, and speaking in an awed whisper, “ did you 
think I knew and wouldn’t tell you? Don’t tell 
Robert! He wouldn’t love me anymore! He wouldn’t 
marry me, you know ! She called me daughter ! That 
crazy ugly Rose ! Don’t let her come back, Ollie ! She’ll 
spoil my pretty wedding dress ! Maybe if I’d given her 
that one kiss it wouldn’t have happened ! Maybe if I’d 
sent the letter it wouldn’t have happened ! It’s in the 
blue satchel, Ollie ! I meant to send it to you. Don’t 
scold ! There, I’ve torn my apron again and the 
matron’ll scold ! Ollie’ll mend it. Dear Ollie, how 
good she always is. The blue satchel, in my top 
drawer. Eustis gave it to me for my handkerchiefs. 
How did Eustis get way off here at the asylum ? Go 
away! You’re not my mother! You are Miss Denton’s 
Rose ! Robert wouldn’t love me if he knew ! The blue 
satchel, Ollie! Bring it! It’s yours! You’re not mad 
with me, are you ? There, my shoe’s off and the 
bell’s ringing ! Ollie, help me, please, don’t let them 


THE LETTER DELIVERED. 359 

Scold. Would you have kissed her? Would you 
have let her spoil your pretty wedding dress ? Don’t 
forget the blue satchel, Ollie, it’s yours ! I didn’t mean 

to keep the letter. I didn’t know Robert ! Robert! 

Robert, save me 1 The flames consume me ! ” 

It was the same piercing cry that had rung out 
over the startled air the night before I Once more 
memory was enacting the horrors of that moment 
when, a flying figure of flame, she had rushed through 
the old Hall crying aloud for rescue at the hands of 
him she loved. Robert caught her in his strong arms 
and laid his trembling lips upon her closed eyelids. 
They did not quiver. The lips that had poured forth 
such a torrent of incomprehensible words, breathed one 
last fluttering sigh upon his cheek. The breath was 
as cool as if wafted from the Stygian shores. Virginia 
was released from suffering 1 And the house of rejoic- 
ing was turned into the house of mourning! 

It was toward midnight that Robert Maddox came 
into the room where Olga and Miss Denton were keep- 
ing loving watch and ward over the beautiful sleeper, 
with a small package in his hand. 

“This is yours,” he said, putting it into Olga’s hand. 
“There must have been some reason why she wanted 
you to have it so urgently. My little darling. My mur- 
dered bride.” He turned toward the shrouded form on 
t*he bed and the two women stole out and left him 
alone with his dead ! Olga paused under the hall lamp 


360 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


to say: “ Perhaps Ginia had something to tell me that 
she wanted no one else to know about. I am going 
to the library to read it. She spoke of a letter. I want 
to be alone.’’ 

How loud her own words sounded on the hushed air! 
How distinct every foot-fall on the oil-clothed floor of the 
hall, whose lofty ceiling sent back echoes that startled 
her ! How big and dark and gloomy the library looked ! 
As she entered it, the clock on the mantle struck one ! 
The tall lamp, that had always stood in that one spot 
on the center-table, and the care of which had been 
such a grave responsibility to her in the childish happy 
days of her Hall life, was dimly burning now. As she 
turned it up a rustling sound scarcely louder than a 
mouse scampering behind the wainscoting made her 
start violently. She sank into a chair close by the 
table under the lamp. “ I’m nothing but a bundle of 
quivering nerves to-night,” she said aloud, thinking to 
call back her flying courage by the sound of her own 
voice. The house was as still as a tomb ! The lamp 
made a spot of feeble light in a world of black gloom. 
Chaos seemed to lie close about its flickering flame. 
With fingers icy cold from nervousness Olga loosened 
the knot of blue ribbon that was tied about the 
pretty satin satchel. Two letters lay inside on the per- 
fumed quilted lining. The one was old and yellow 
and rumpled ! The other fresh and crisp and sweet 
smelling. On the one was written — “To my little 


THE LETTER DELIVERED. 


361 


daughter Olga, to be given to her on her eighteenth 
birthday,” on the other — “ To my precious Ollie, from 
her naughty Virginia — read this one first.” 

Ginia's wishes were all commands now, so Olga laid 
the letter that had waited so long for a hearing rever- 
ently aside, while she read these apologetic words of 
Viginia’s. 

My darling Ollie. I don’t know what you will say 
or think of me when Miss Denton gives you this 
together with the letter I’ve kept you out of so unin- 
tentionally. If you had come over to my wedding, as I 
begged you, I would have put my arms about your 
neck and have coaxed you to forgive me ; as it is, I do 
beg your pardon, and you must decide whether or not 
you can grant it after reading this my explanation. 

I must go back to the day when I first saw my 
Robert, to give it. Little did I think then, that he 
ever would be my Robert, as he will for very truth in 
two little days now. Well, I was rummaging in Mamma 
Stanhope’s trunks that day (you would have scolded 
if you’d been here), and at the bottom of one of them I 
found your box. I took it for granted that it was 
jewelry packed away there, and didn’t think any harm 
could come of looking at it. Just as I had got all the 
contents of your box fairly scattered over the floor (I 
knew it was your’s by the letter lying on the top of 
all the other things), I heard wheels and knew I would 
be wanted. I crammed every thing back, as I supposed, 


362 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


and never opened the box again. Mamma sent it to you 
by Miss Denton. That was two long years ago, 
and here, just the other day, mamma sent me to that 
same trunk to get out one of her colored silk dresses. 
She said she would honor my wedding by appearing in 
it, and there — oh ! Ollie, don’t be too angry with me — 
when I shook the dress, out of its rumples there fell to 
the floor a letter ! My heart stood still when I picked 
it up and found that it was your letter ! Then I thought 
you would come over to my wedding and I would put 
my arms around your neck and kiss you into a good 
humor. But you would not come. So now I’ve got to 
write all this long stupid explanation, which don’t look 
a bit sorry on paper, and when Miss Denton goes back 
she will take it to you in my pretty little blue satchel 
that Eustis gave me. I want you to have it, because 
it smells so sweet, and I remember there was a sweet 
smelling little d’oyley wrapped about your letter that I 
can’t find any where. I suppose I’ll never know how 
angry I’ve made you, but I know you’ll believe I didn’t 
mean to do wrong. Lovingly your happy, happy, 
happy Ginia who wants to kiss you.” 

“ Poor little Ginia! ” said Olga, wiping away the fast 
crowding tears, “ it is so like her ! never meaning to do 
wrong. Always trusting to the potency of a kiss or a 
contrite word for pardon ! ” 

The silver bell of the clock smote the air with a sin- 
gle stroke to mark the passage of another half-hour. 


THE LETTER DELIVERED. 


363 


The oil in the lamp was almost spent. The flame 
burned yet more feebly and flickered in a hopeless vac- 
illation between living or dying. Turning it yet a lit- 
tle higher, Olga kneeled by the table to get its fullest 
benefit and reverently spread open the sheet folded by 
a mother’s hand long years ago. With parted lips and 
heaving breast she read on and on and on until the last 
word had burned itself into her memory forever. There 
were pages of it ! Closely, beautifully written. It was a 
plea for pardon from a mother to her child ! It was a 
prayer from a mother’s soul for her child ! It was a 
wail from a breaking heart ! Not in that first reading 
did Olga master the strange story it told. That must 
come with time and a quieter re-reading. But one 
blessed revelation illumined the entire sheet. The 
revelation of unspotted parentage ! of untainted blood ! 
She was not Rose’s child ! She was not a bastard ! 
That was enough! God was merciful! To Him with 
up-lifted hands and streaming eyes her first burst of 
gratitude was offered, there where she kneeled in the 
dimly lit library, with the shadows of night lying thick 
about her. The pallid lamp-light shed a faint halo 
about her pure young brow! Her lovely eyes glowed 
with the light of a great happiness. It was upon this 
radiant vision that Eustis Stanhope opened his wonder- 
ing eyes and startled Olga to her feet by a smothered 
ejaculation. From the dimmest corner of the long room 
he came toward her now with words of sincere apology : 


364 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


“Believe me I am innocent/’ he said ; “the unrest 
and excitement of the past twenty-four hours over- 
came me when I had only thrown myself on the lounge 
behind the screen fora few moments’ rest. When I 
opened my eyes and saw you kneeling there with your 
face radiant with joy and heard your words of fervent 
gratitude to Heaven I knew some great good had come 
into your life unexpectedly. Is it not so, child? ” 

His eyes fell on the open letter under the lamp. 
With her hands tightly pressed over her heart Olga mur- 
mured the one word “Yes.” 

“And it has come to you in that letter?” 

“ Yes ! I have found a mother and a name ! P.ejoice 
with me.” 

He reached out his hand imploringly toward the 
letter: “ Let me know it too, child! If there is any 
thing in that letter, Olga, that concerns you, it concerns 
me too. Will you not tell me what it is? Now, 
to-night, without making any more mystery of it? If it 
is any thing that will break down the barriers between 
us, have you any right to keep it from me ? I heard 
you say ‘ God has been merciful to me,’ tell me that 
He has been merciful to us both, dear. To me and to 
you, Olga. Tell me that He has lifted the curse from 
our love—” 

She interrupted him with a sweet gravity in strong 
contrast to his violent agitation. Her self-control was 
marvelous. 


THE LETTER DELIVERED. 


365 


“God has been merciful to me/’ she said, and I 
believe the monstrous mistake that has blotted all 
brightness out of my life for years past may be 
explained away — God has been very merciful to me in 
giving me mother’s stainless memory to revere. Itjs 
not clear to me yet. There is much to be done 
before it can be clear. The barriers are not broken 
down, my friend, perhaps they are strengthened. If 
we ever meet on equal ground, Eustis, we will utter our 
thanksgiving together. But not yet.” 

“ And I am not even to know the contents of that 
letter?” 

“ Most certainly not.” The pain in his dear face soft- 
ened the obdurate resolve in her heart, impelling her to 
add — “ at least, not until — ” her voice fell to a solemn 
monotone — 

“What? when?” he interrupted eagerly. 

“ Not until,” she said, softly tapping the now folded 
letter with one little fore-finger, “ every word in this let- 
ter is proven true beyond the possibility of a doubt. 
Ah ! I have been the victim of so much duplicity ; so 
much of stratagem and cruel deceit has passed muster 
for the truth with me, that do you wonder I have 
grown coldly cautious or even skeptical ? I believe now 
I have the clew to that poor woman’s humility toward 
me. Rose, I mean. A humility which I could never 
overcome, while it pained me to the quick, believing her 
to be my mother.” 


366 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


*‘And you found that clew in poor little Virginia’s 
ravings. You think — that — Rose — ” 

Olga put her hand up to silence him: “Hush! 
Do not add that thorn to your friend’s crown of 
sorrow. After all it was human nature ! Poor Rose. 
She protected her young, that was all. Perhaps it 
is well this revelation has come to me when it could 
do no harm to others. Perhaps God in His mercy 
removed Virginia before the chalice was held to her 
lips. He doeth all things well. I would not have had 
her endure what I have in these latter days, for all 
the world contains.” 

“And I—” 

“ Must wait,” she said briefly, but as she passed him 
on her way to the door, her radiant eyes rested upon 
him for a second in a glance that held a promise and a 
benediction both in one. 


CHAPTER XXX. 


PROVEN BEYOND A DOUBT. 

I T was Miss Denton who managed it so that, a few 
days after Olga and she were once more settled at 
home in the cabin, Mr. and Mrs. Trowbridge drove up 
to the fence in their antiquated buggy, and coming in 
announced in that informal way which is the etiquette 
of plantation life, that they had come to spend the day. 

It was Miss Denton who managed it so that this 
arrival should befall while Olga was up at the school- 
house, where she had resumed her duties immediately 
on coming back from the Hall. The Hall was closed 
and empty now, Eustis having taken his mother to 
New Orleans until the shock of Virginia’s tragic death 
should have worn itself away. 

It was Miss Denton who managed it so that the 
picture which had come to Olga in the box left at the 
asylum, should be placed conspicuously on the table, 
where it was sure to be handled by the visitors in one 
of those inevitable pauses in the conversation that come 
oftenest where topics are few and talkers not in sym- 
pathy. 


368 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


For, however much the true-souled, bright-witted, 
energetic little old maid might be in sympathy with 
Mr. G. Waring Trowbridge’s gentle, neutral-tinted 
wife, she was decidedly antagonistic to the handsome 
blas^ man who sauntered into Olga’s humble sitting- 
room on this day with an inward sense of magnanimity 
not quite explicable even to himself. 

It was not Miss Denton, however, who managed it 
so that Mr. Trowbridge, taking up the ambrotype case 
with languid intent to kill time, should, after one sur- 
prised glance, have laid it down again with audible 
haste and a violent ejaculation. 

“The devil ! ” 

Miss Denton, fixing her keen gray eyes sharply on 
her nephew, interrupted Mrs. Trowbridge’s rather 
querulous description of household difficulties under 
the new regime to ask, “ What is it. Waring ? ” 

“ That picture,” he laughed nervously and took it 
up again. “ You remember Nannie ? My sister Nannie 
— of course.” 

“ Yes,” said Miss Denton calmly, “ of course I remem- 
ber Nannie, although I never saw her after she was 
ten years old. You know 1 was in Europe for some 
years.” 

“Your sister, Mr. Trowbridge, that ran away with — 
who was it?” Mrs. Trowbridge turned curious eyes 
from one to the other of them. “ Waring would never 
talk to me about her, but some of the old people on the 


PRO VEN BE YOND A DO UB T. 369 

place have hinted at a Miss Nannie, and when IVe 
asked about her, Waring would always say, she’s dead ; 
there’s nothing to tell you.” 

She got up and walked over to look at the disturb- 
ing picture. ‘‘ And you say this looks like her. Waring? 
Oh, how beautiful, but how intensely sad. Who is this. 
Miss Denton ? ” 

It is the picture of Nannie Trowbridge, afterward 
Mrs. Herman Hartmann,” Miss Denton answered in 
a slowly deliberate voice, as one speaks when guarding 
against the recognized possibility of being run away 
with by one’s feelings. She made an unfortunate mar- 
riage some years before you came into the family. She 
was a very beautiful girl, younger than your husband by 
a few years, and he, being the only man left in the family 
when his father died, was appointed the legal guardian 
of his sister’s person and property. I think the mistake 
he fell into was in supposing his guardianship extended 
to her heart and soul.” 

And this picture, you say, looks like her ? ” Mrs. 
Trowbridge asked again, looking up absently from the 
picture in her hand. 

“Wonderfully,” said Mr. Trowbridge carelessly. 

“ That picture, is hers,” says Miss Denton, with a 
click in her voice that boded no good to the trans- 
gressor she was about to arraign. 

“The devil it is! How came you by it?” Mr. 
Trowbridge asked, in his ugliest manner. 


370 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


** That’s what I’ve invited you here to-day to tell 
you,” said Miss Denton, looking up at the clock as she 
added, *‘It is a few minutes past ten o’clock only, 
now, and I want to have all the disagreeables of our 
discussion got out of the way before that poor girl 
gets back from the school-house. She has had 
enough to try her nerves latterly without any thing 
additional being laid on unnecessarily.” 

** You mean the death of her young friend, Virginia,” 
says Mrs. Trowbridge, pityingly. That was a shock- 
ing affair ! ” 

“ Not that exclusively. But I’m not good at cir- 
cumlocution, Emma. I wanted you to come with 
Waring because of course what I am about to say will 
bear fruit in one direction or another and there’s no 
use mystifying you about it. It is evident that you 
never knew much about Waring’s beautiful sister.” 

No,” says Mrs. Trowbridge, with a little surprised 
look into her husband’s flushed face. “ He never liked 
to talk about her.” 

“ It was not necessary that I should,” Mr. Trow- 
bridge said, considering that she was dead to her 
family long years before you came into it, Mrs. Trow- 
bridge. But since, for some still unexplained reason, 
Aunt Denton desires to rake open, that old sore, you 
may as well have my version of the story as hers.” 

“ Certainly, dear,” says Mrs. Trowbridge, settling 
herself into an attitude of respectful attention, while 


PROVEN BEYOND A DOUBT. 


371 


Miss Denton picked up her knitting and fell to work in 
grim silence. 

‘‘You know that my father and mother died when I 
was ^ mere youth, not more than twenty-one, but hav- 
ing reached my majority, I was legally qualified to act 
as the guardian of the person and property of my sister 
Nannie, just then seventeen years old. I put her at a 
boarding school in New Orleans, where she distin- 
guished herself principally by falling in love with her 
German teacher, a fat greasy fellow with a — ” 

“ The original of the picture there,” says Miss Den- 
ton, indicating the object of Mr. Trowbridge’s unflat- 
tering adjectives with one of her long knitting needles. 

“ She wrote me all about it frankly enough and asked 
my brotherly benediction on her confounded foolish- 
ness. I went down to New Orleans, complained of 
the rascal to the principal of the school, succeeded in 
having him kicked out, and told Nannie if I heard any 
more of such nonsense I should certainly put her in a 
convent. She stoutly maintained her resolve to marry 
him, and I told her that she would do it at her peril. 
That doubtless he was courting her under the impres- 
sion that she was a rich cotton heiress, but that our 
property had been left by father so that it was not to 
be divided until she came of age, which would be four 
years off. I came home thinking I had left matters all 
right. A letter from the principal of the school, telling 
me of Nannie’s elopement with her German teacher, 


372 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


was the next news I got from New Orleans. From 
that moment she passed out of my life.” 

“ And you never heard of her, or from her again ? ” 
said Mrs. Trowbridge, deeply interested in the roman- 
tic aspect of the thing. 

‘‘ No.” 

Never, Waring?” Miss Denton asked, searching 
the dark face before her with truth-loving eyes. 

Well, that is, I did get some rubbishy letters from 
both of them. Begging ones from her, bullying ones 
from him. Then the letters stopped coming and I 
know nothing more. It all happened before the war.” 

“ Then, of course, you would like to hear the sequel 
to poor Nannie’s romance,” said Miss Denton, laying 
down her knitting, putting on her glasses, and drawing 
from her pocket Olga’s letter, and I am glad I am in 
position to put an end to the suspense and sorrow you 
must naturally have experienced at losing sight of 
your only sister. But, first, a few words of explanation 
as to how I came into possession of this sequel. When 
our friend Mrs. Stanhope brought home from Cleveland 
the two orphan children that have grown up within 
our knowledge, she brought also, a box that the 
matron told her had been left at the asylum with the 
child Olga, with the written request from the child’s 
mother to her, the matron, that the box should not be 
given to her child until she was grown. I suppose the 
mother did not take into consideration any chance of 


PRO VEN BE YOND A DOUBT. 373 

her ever being taken out of the asylum. When I 
came over to live with Olga, the box was deliv- 
ered to her. I brought it over ; it contained, among 
other things, that picture, but no word of explanation 
of any sort, which was a bitter disappointment to poor 
Olga, who had of course all the cravings of a refined 
nature to know something definite of her own origin, 
and the box was comparatively valueless to her lacking 
any such information. Here just the other day, after 
poor Virginia’s death, this letter came into Olga’s hands, 
and while relieving her of the worst fears that could 
crush a young girl to the earth, has placed her in a 
cruel dilemma from which she obstinately refuses to 
relieve herself, but from which I am resolved to rescue 
her, let who may smart for it.” 

Mr. Trowbridge winced perceptibly. It was evident 
he regarded himself as the possible vent for Miss Den- 
ton’s righteous indignation. She opened the yellow 
letter with the most exasperating deliberation : 

I won’t have time to read all this to you, and to do 
my talking too before Olga gets back. This letter is 
written by your sister Nannie. You shall have it to 
take home with you, if Olga consents. She tells the 
story of her pitiful wanderings with a husband imbit- 
tered by their failure to secure her inheritance and 
imbruted by drink. It tells the story of his final 
miserable end in Cleveland and of her desperate strug- 
gles to maintain her child by giving music lessons, for 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


374 

which she was unfitted by disease. It gives the 
mournful particulars of her waning strength and of 
her preparations to have her child taken to the asylum 
as soon as she passes away. It goes on to tell Olga, 
that doubtless, by an appeal to law, when she comes 
of age that she can rescue her inheritance from her 
uncle, Mr. G. Waring Trowbridge. She does not 
advise her to this fight, but she tells her that she leaves 
her in possession of all the facts, so that in case her 
own judgment, or that of friendly advisers, incline her 
to a contest she shall be at no loss for the points of 
the case. She blames herself for not having made 
efforts in that line for the child’s sake, but says that 
the war which was raging when she died, rendered all 
legal proceedings impossible. Her directions are very 
explicit for the guidance of her daughter.” 

“Well!” says Mr. Trowbridge, stroking his mus- 
tache with a nervous hand. “ What next ? ” 

“Well,” says Miss Denton, “this foolish, obstinate 
girl refuses to assert her claims, which, of course, you 
know to be entirely valid. Waring.” 

“ But we will assert them for her, won’t we, husband ? ” 
says Mrs. Trowbridge, with glowing eyes. “ We will take 
the dear child into our home and hearts, if she will 
allow us, and make up to her for all that her poor 
mother suffered so unjustly. She will not need to go 
to law.” 

“Slowly, my dear Mrs. T., move slowly,” says Mr. 


PROVEN BEYOND A DOUBT. 375 

Trowbridge sneeringly. If my niece sees fit to insti- 
tute legal proceedings — ” 

Which she does not purpose doing.” It was Olga's 
own soft voice that answered him. In their eager dis- 
cussion of her affairs, no one had heard her enter by the 
back way and steal into her own room for a second, 
there to gain full control of herself before facing this 
fresh trial. “ I am so full of rejoicing over the revela- 
tions contained in this precious letter,” she continued, 
possessing herself of it as it lay on Miss Denton’s lap, 

that the wealth of the Indies could make me no richer.” 

Mr. Trowbridge rose to his most majestic height and 
held out both hands graciously. “ My dear niece, my 
poor Nannie’s child ! I am ready to make the amende 
in any shape you require. Let us bury the past in 
oblivion.” 

Olga placed one hand coldly in his. As they stood 
thus, face to face, Mrs. Trowbridge said, with excited 
irrelevance, 

‘‘That accounts for it.” 

“ What accounts for what, Emma? ” Mr. Trowbridge 
asked, with some natural resentment at this spoiling of 
a dramatic situation. 

“The remarkable likeness between you and Olga 
that has always puzzled me so. Don’t you see it. Miss 
Denton ? ” 

Mr. Trowbridge’s eyes fell before the pure uplifted 
gaze of his sister’s child. It was like facing an accus- 


376 


WITHOUT BLEMISH. 


ing angel. Olga took up the discussion to the relief 
of all. 

“ I do not propose any immediate change in my 
mode of life. If I have any claims on you legally, Mr. 
Trowbridge, they will be satisfied by the grant of such 
an income as shall relieve me from real poverty. Noth- 
ing that has happened recently can in any way affect 
the self-assumed duties that fill my days.” 

‘*But you will live with us, dear,” said Mrs. Trow- 
bridge, pleadingly, “ you will live with us and learn to 
call me Aunt Emma, and let me love you as if Fd been 
the sister to your poor mother that I would certainly 
have been if Td only known her?” 

I will call you Aunt Emma and love you, as I’ve 
always loved you,” Olga said, twining her arms caress- 
ingly about Mrs. Trowbridge’s neck, “ but you must 
not ask me to give up my work. Because I have found 
the memory of a mother and a name, is there one iota 
less darkness and ignorance and helplessness among 
the poor people for whom I have labored and for 
whom I will labor so long as life lasts? Because,” and 
here her calm gaze rested on Waring Trowbridge’s 
down-cast eyes, “ a great load has been lifted from my 
heart and soul, must I cease to bear in mind the loads 
that are not lifted ? Oh ! no, let me make of my days 
one prolonged thank offering. It will not be as hard 
now as it once was. I sometimes think,” she added med- 
itatively, “ that riches would be a good thing to have, for 


PI^OFEN BEYOND A DOUBT. 


377 


then so many projects that now seem chimerical would 
be simple matters of course. But I would not accept 
from my uncle’s fears what he refused to his sense of 
justice. This, my more than mother,” she said, laying 
her hand upon Miss Denton’s shoulder, as she stood by 
her chair, “ will live with me as before. We are suffi- 
cient unto each other. Mine is not a joyous lot, but 
such as it is I will accept it and will make the best 
of it.” 

“ It is my wish,” said Mr. Trowbridge, lapsing into 
the dictatorial manner that was constitutional with 
him, “ that my sister’s child shall become a member 
of my own household. I should not be willing for you 
to continue your present mode of life.” 

“ Your sister’s child has passed through the sharpest 
ordeals of her life unaided, unrecognized, my uncle. 
The offer you now make her would have been enough 
to insure her happiness some years ago. It can not 
affect it in the least now.” 

And from this defiant attitude no power could move 
her. Miss Denton was bitterly disappointed that Olga 
had intruded herself into the discussion before she had 
frightened Waring into a promise to divide what 
little was left him in the way of property evenly with 
his sister’s child. 

Mr. Trowbridge was alarmed at finding so entirely 
intractable a relative suddenly evolved from the meek- 
browed young school-teacher who had been labor- 


378 WITHOUT BLEMISH. 

ing so industriously to “ ruin every nigger in the 
country.’' 

Mrs. Trowbridge was disappointed at the point- 
blank refusal of her husband’s beautiful niece to place 
herself under their protection, and avail herself of this 
opportunity to secure a position in society she could 
never hope to achieve as things were. 

Olga alone, spirited, beautiful Olga, was serene and 
resolute ; and away down in her girlish heart a tender 
hope was springing into life, a fond question was 
waiting to be answered : 

Did he love her well enough to come to her, now 
that the stain was removed ? Did he love her well 
enough to take her from the lowly cabin she called 
home, from the work that made her a thing of small 
account in prejudiced eyes, to place her by his side in 
the old Hall, where none but stately ladies of long 
pedigree and bluest blood and spotless records had 
ever found acceptance? Could she and Eustis meet 
on even ground at last ? 


CONCLUSION. 


ND after many days there came this letter to the 



±\ little cabin in the woods. It came in the early 
spring-time, when the green tassels of the pecan trees 
fringed the brown twigs with softest verdure ; when a 
glory of pink and white enveloped the peach and apple 
orchards ; when the air was balmy with a thousand 
perfumes ; when the birds sang to each other of 
mating time and home delights ; when all the earth 
was glad and life was very sweet. It was an answer to 
her questioning heart. 

It came to Olga from Eustis Stanhope, but only a 
small portion of it was ever yielded up to eyes profane. 
With a great show of folding down and folding under, 
this much was submitted to Miss Denton’s eyes : 

‘‘ It is not as if we had parted in a childish 
reasonless lovers’ quarrel. Across the gulf that sud- 
denly yawned between us, we have looked at each 
other with truth in our eyes and tenderness in our 
hearts. There may be those, who, if they knew all 
the burden that has weighed my darling’s soul to the 
ground, would call me craven for quailing from her 
side when she was personally just what she is now, 
that I so eagerly sue for the privilege of calling her 


380 WITHOUT BLEMISH. 

my wife. They would contend that in point of beauty, 
goodness and worth, the niece of Waring Trowbridge 
is in no respect the superior of old Dora’s grand- 
daughter, but you and I, my peerless one, see and 
think differently. It is not by battering down the 
barriers with a reckless hand that the great problem of 
redemption for a race is to be worked out. Side by 
side on platforms of an even elevation in morals and 
manners and good achievements let them stand with 
the highest. Help them to it, sustain them on it. 
But not by obliterating lines traced by Omniscience 
itself. Whom God has put asunder, let no man join 
together. 

“ That you are dowerless ; that you spent your 
tenderest years as a nameless charity child ; that you 
have devoted your talents and energy to a cause not 
yet popularized, weigh as nothing in the scales against 
my longing and my love. I only await your per- 
mission to come for you, but I await it impatiently.” 

But not for long. 

Before the pale green tassels of the pecan trees had 
yielded precedence to sturdy nut cones ; before the 
pink and white clouds of orchard bloom had faded 
from sight ; before the birds that sang of mating time 
had finished building in the tree-tops, the little cabin 
in the woods was empty, and over in the old Hall of 
the Stanhopes there lived and moved a sweet womanly 
presence beloved of all, its accepted joy and its crown. 


CONCLUSION. 


381 

Miss Denton went back to live with Robert Maddox, 
whose organism, mental and moral, were too healthy 
to allow him to succumb to the first great sorrow of 
his life. The shadow is not yet lifted, but with heart 
and hand and head he labors on in the field he has 
chosen, and his staunchest coadjutors in all good 
work are Mr. and Mrs. Eustis Stanhope! 


THE END. 


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